Of Witches and Kisses
by KaryInTheSky
Summary: What goes inside the meticulous and complex mind of a witch when it comes to dealing with men? Join the ones who are brave enough to wonder inside a Witch's head! Different HP witches. Chapter 9: Audrey Thombson
1. Hermione Granger

**First Encounters**

"Well?"

"Well … What?"

"Don't try to fool me! I just saw Viktor walking away from this direction! Well??... Hermione…are you blushing?"

"Ginny! I am not! Besides, Viktor is always trying to talk to me, so … what's the big deal?"

"Actually, he's always trying to be with you alone! Needless to say that this must seem almost impossible to him thanks to those pathetic girls that keep chasing him, but you two look like you were pretty alone if you ask me! So … did something happen this time?"

Hermione closed her eyes and pressed her lips tight, a smooth smile escaping from them. Ginny's eyes popped.

"I knew it! And you weren't going to say anything, were you?"

"Well, I don't know … I'm a bit embarrassed. You don't even let me catch my breath!"

"Oh! Don't blame me! I'm not the one who took your breath away to begin with!"

"Ginny!"

Hermione's cheeks were turning a light shade of red; she could still feel the warm shiver taking over her lips. She drove her eyes to the floor smiling at the fresh memory.

"Well? Don't do this to me! Please. Tell me! He kissed you, didn't he?"

Hermione kept her eyes fixed on the presumably interesting floor as she pressed her fingertips against her still warm lips. She decided to look at her friend in the eyes and simply answer her.

"Yes, a matter of fact he did."

"Oh, this is so exciting! What was it like?"

"Ginny!"

"Come on! Did he just walk towards you and kissed you?"

"Merlin's pants no! He _is_ a gentleman, you know!"

"Then … what was it like? How did he approach you?"

Hermione hesitated for a moment, but she couldn't find a good reason to not tell Ginny. As a matter of fact, she could not think of a better person to share this with.

"Well … actually we kind of bumped into each other. I was sort of rushing, and I didn´t see him. I just had a discussion with Ron because he said that…"

"Well, that's odd!" interrupted Ginny sarcastically. "Anyway, I don't care about Ron…"

"Ok then! But Let _me_ do the talking. Well, he said hello and asked me if he could walk with me and well … we walked together and started talking. Actually he more or less asked me questions and I did the talking", she stopped and smiled for a moment. "You know… he did seem more nervous than usual".

"Hermione … he really fancies you. For what I can see _you_ make him nervous."

Hermione stopped to think for a moment in what Ginny had just said. It felt nice to be able to make a guy nervous. And she had to admit that even _she_ felt pleasure thinking that Viktor Krum liked her enough to feel nervous around her. She suddenly remembered that she was telling a story.

"Well, the point is that after a while we stopped walking, and he pointed out that we were alone. The minute he said that I could not help but feeling nervous. We just stood there for a couple of minutes saying nothing. It was very awkward." Hermione let a smile escape her lips as she talked. "Then he reached to grab my hand, and I let him. And … he leaned slowly towards me … and I … let him …"

Ginny's eyes had transformed into round plates. Her smile was even bigger than Hermione's. She considered that at this point of the conversation it wouldn't be too inappropriate to ask:

"Well, and what was _that_ like? I mean … was it weird? Was it awkward?"

"Actually no … it wasn't," Hermione's cheeks were heading for bowling point by now. "Actually…it felt sweet and smooth. It was nice, really nice. He held my hand the entire time."

She stopped again to think. At the beginning of the year if someone would have told her that she was going to kiss the Quidditch star that everyone absolutely adored, she would have laughed thinking that she neither needed nor wanted that to happen. The truth was that it happened, just a few minutes previous. She had been gently kissed for the first time in her life, and by a man who was not into playing games, or pretending that he did not care about her just to seem more interesting. On the contrary, he had demonstrated in the past few months that he was interested in her … and only her.

She rubbed her lips with her fingertips once more, hoping for the recent taste to stay a bit longer. She remembered the sudden event, hoping she would not forget what her first kiss had been like. Every girl she knew made a huge fuss about first kisses, and she had just got hers. She concentrated, trying to remember her lips against another's: the intriguing feeling, the warm soft skin, the comforting pleasure, and most of all the tenderness she had not been expecting.

"Are you going to do it again?", said Ginny breaking Hermione's concentration.

"Well…" she smiled shyly. "Yeah, I can't see why not."

"Can you imagine the faces of his fan club girls if they knew their Viktor Krum just kissed you? I can also imagine a certain person's head exploiting if he knew as well," Ginny gave out this last statement through a whisper.

"No! Ginny! You musn't tell anyone! I'd be so embarrassed! Viktor is so discreet; I don't want to ruin that."

"Alright! I won't tell…" she said, looking disappointed. "I still don't see why you want such mystery."

"I happen to enjoy my privacy."

Hermione was not sure if that was the only reason. She _did_ feel a bit embarrassed. After the Yule Ball a lot of girls asked her things about Viktor. Some seemed too impressed at the thought of him dating her, others seemed rather curious since there were strong rumors about her 'relationship' with Harry thanks to the noble works of Rita Skeeter.

But most of all, she could not deny herself being upset about one of her best friend's reaction to the whole situation. That should not have upset him; most important it should not have upset her. But the truth was it did. She in fact did care what Ron thought, even if she swore differently. She in fact was still absolutely hurt with him for taking her for granted until he found out that she had a date for the ball. Oh, Ron made her absolutely mad. He waited until the last minute to ask her—as if his rude treatment could actually be called _asking_—and when he found out who she went with he had had the nerve to get mad. _Screw Ron_, she thought. It felt too complicated to get into that now. So she preferred to savor the moment privately, knowing that only Ginny would share her excitement.

"Okay … now tell me," Ginny hesitated, but decided to ask the question. "Did you feel it?"

"What? Feel it? Of course I felt it. It was a kiss, a good one … not that I have anything to compare it to," she added laughing.

"No! No! I mean did you feel _it_? You know… that thing you are supposed to feel when you have your first kiss. You know! The huge butterflies on your stomach … you _do_ know … don't you?"

Hermione raised her eyebrow, trying to figure this out as she would try to figure out a complicated potion.

"Well … I was really nervous; my heart was trying to escape through my throat. But I also really liked it, if that's what you mean…"

"No! No! I mean what people often talk about! You know: the dizziness, your knees trembling, the fact that for a moment you forget you're standing someplace, you forget where you are, you forget about anybody who is around you, and you don't care because every single one of your feelings embraces you. And at last, for a few seconds everything goes black, until you're mind brings you back to reality. You felt that … didn't you?"

Hermione stared at Ginny´s detailed description. That was a good compilation of what she had heard about certain kisses. She smiled at the fact that her friend almost memorized it, probably to make sure she identified it when it happened to her. But Hermione wasn't even sure if all that was actually true. Still, she did not have to think her next answer. With a sigh she said:

"No, I didn't."

Ginny looked at her friend with disappointment.

"Ginny," said Hermione, with a little of disappointment in her voice as well. "I think that's what you are supposed to feel when you kiss someone you love for the first time."

Ginny bit her lip and looked as if she had just been told a crushing truth. But her disappointment was soon vanished and replaced by an expression of realization.

"Well then … we will just have to work and kiss our way through that feeling until we find it!," she replied with a mocking tone of voice.

"That's charming Ginny…"

"I'm serious!" said Ginny. "I'm not going to just sit around and wait! But you'll see, we'll have our perfect and spectacular kiss sometime. In the mean time you can concentrate on Viktor."

The girls laughed after Ginny's last statements. But Hermione could not stop thinking about her friend's description of a perfect kiss. She could not help but wondering if so big an emotion could be concentrated inside a kiss: powerful enough to shake her world and invite her to embrace the moment forgetting about everything and everyone else. She wondered if it was possible to have that deep of a connection, and most intriguing of all: if it was possible such amount of passion. She wondered if she could still feel as much with Viktor; maybe in time she would feel it. No, she was just fooling herself. She knew she wasn't going to feel that with him. She did not know how, but she knew. Viktor was okay—well, maybe he was close to being perfect. But for some stupid reason, perfect wasn't what she wanted. She wanted more than perfection.

She smiled at Ginny's positivism. But in the inside her smile was bigger. She suddenly surprised herself wondering what she would feel if she were to kiss somebody _else_. She snapped out of it a second later, shaking her head and remembering that Ginny was still in front of her. Besides, the simple thought of it was just ridiculous.

_A/N: This is a small, simple piece. It's not much, but I had fun writing it, hope you liked it! I might continue it writing from the experience of other witches. _


	2. Nymphadora Tonks

**Bittersweet Meetings**

Tonks, like a lot of witches, had several great memories of her experiences at Hogwarts. She had never seen more amazing castle. So many people shared their lives inside it, and there were so many different colors of the world to see every day.

She, like a lot of witches, had experienced her first kiss at Hogwarts, under the shade of an old oak tree. She had decided that day that kisses were her favorite way of metamorphosis. A girl could never be the same after certain kisses. She remembered her first boyfriend: so innocent, so naive, so willing, so much like her. She also remembered her first kiss: soft, risky and even wild. It was all innocent, filled with silly lines and tender touches.

Now it was different. Oh so many years later, none of that existed.

Grimmauld Place was silent. The room preserved the same stillness it had been prone to over the past few days. Dust was returning to the corners of the dining room and the walls seemed taller and wider now that the Order was not gathering so frequently. The table felt uncomfortably large. On one end of it Sirius sat holding a large cup of coffee. As he sipped the beverage he could not help but gaze at the only visitor he had received in the past few days. But he wasn't sure if she was visiting him, or just waiting for something to happen.

Tonks sat at the other end of the table. Her elbows rested firmly on the wood, her hands cradled her head, she hadn't moved for the past fifteen minutes. It certainly wasn't a normal behavior for Nymphadora Tonks. But she seemed concentrated, she had been staring firmly at her own cup of coffee, as if she was trying to hex it.

"It's for drinking," said Sirius.

"It's too hot," she replied shortly.

"No, it's not," he said keeping his eyes fixed on her as he took in her odd behavior.

"It's … It's too dark," she replied. "Too bitter for my liking."

"Yes, it is. No point on drinking it if it isn't as dark as possible". This time he twisted the corner of his mouth. It could have been interpreted as a smile. He rose his cup simulating a toast, and drank some more.

She shook her head, keeping her concentration on the almost black substance that rested untouched inside her cup. It was insanely dark, strong, bitter and hot. And yet she wanted it, it was addictive.

"Are you going to tell me now what happened?"

She shook her head again. She did not want to tell. He nodded in understanding. He didn't want to push it.

"Stop it Tonks. I know what you've been trying to do there, and you won't be able to transform that coffee. You can't change dark."

She raised her eyes for the first time to look at him. Her mouth was partly open, her lips fully dry. She only spoke after a couple of minutes.

"I never wanted to change him, Sirius. I never did. But … he won't … he's so … "

"Dark? Bitter?"

"I know he doesn't want to be."

"And yet he is."

Tonks closed her eyes. She was not at Hogwarts anymore, she knew that and _he_ wasn't naive, yet she could sense some innocence in him. He wasn't cheerful or willing, and yet she was intoxicatingly dragged towards him, he was addictive without wanting to be, he just was.

"He's probably feeling worse than you."

"He's so … difficult," she said, the words not a criticism, not really complaining; it was just a statement.

"He's an idiot," said Sirius.

"I thought he was your friend," she said looking at the black substance again, wondering if she could actually hex it.

"No, he isn't just a friend, he's much more than that, so I get to call him whatever I want," stated Sirius giving out a smile.

She returned it weakly. It was more a smile of appreciation, for putting up with her lame behavior. After all, up until that moment, only Sirius could truly understand loneliness.

"No, you can't change dark Tonks," he repeated, this time he pushed towards her a sugar bowl that had been standing next to him. "But … you can always add a bit of sugar," This time he was grinning sincerely and Tonks grabbed the sugar bowl, truly smiling for the first time that day.

It was only a matter of weeks until Tonks came to a firm decision. One night she dared to go to _his_ house. He gave her his reasonable speech again, as expected, and she repeated her usual reply. She repeated that she did not care, and that he was lying to her and to his own self. She could feel his frustration, and for the first time since their game had begun he was running out of excuses.

It had all been so simple at the beginning. There had been smiles, glances, and slight touches. But there had never been kisses, no kisses. No sign of metamorphosis whatsoever. He had been resisting, he had been avoiding her, and that was what broke her down a few weeks before. She had savored his true bitterness.

But this night, she refused to leave his house. She stood only a few feet away from him.

"You make it so hard," he finally said as he rested his body against the torn wallpaper. He brought a hand to his face, hiding his eyes underneath it. "If you only knew … what it's like." He held his breath for a moment, sensing her approaching, sensing her as she broke the short distance between them.

She moved one hand towards him and grabbed his own, uncovering his hidden eyes. She was not going to use more words tonight. She looked at him, sensing the speed of his breathing, the uncertainty in his eyes, the abstinence of his lips.

"You really make it too hard…" he said again, grabbing her hand, rubbing her palm with his fingers, and contemplating her secure eyes.

She shook her head. There were no smiles, no silly lines, there was just them. His hair was messy. That couldn't be, so she dragged her fingers through his hair trying to fix it. He closed his eyes sensing her enticing touch, while he grabbed tighter to her hand. She was done with his hair, it looked perfect, so her hands traveled down to his forehead, feeling wrinkles and years. Soon they were touching the skin of his neck, feeling scars and pain. Her fingers traveled up again and arrived to his mouth. She wondered if metamorphosis would come tonight, for either of them. She had to taste it, even if there was a high chance of savoring bitterness in the end.

She knew her risk, but she dared, she leaned forward, and felt him breathing deeply. Her fingers were still touching his mouth, getting in the way, so she removed them, and finally tasted the strong flavor of the dark substance.

She gave into the new taste. It was insanely dark, strong, and hot. It was not cheerful or naive. It was intense and intoxicating, simply perfect. She felt his free hand touching her face, sending shivers across her skin. In a matter of seconds he had dropped all arguments, all forms of reason. For a moment he had transformed into a new form of being. He didn't need a full moon for that transformation. Tonks was more than enough.

She was sure she needed to breathe, but she couldn't stop tasting, savoring. She was consumed by him; he was addictive.

Their hands felt free to travel around their bodies, but her palm was now resting above his heart, feeling its unfathomable speed. She was sure that her knees would break the moment she felt his hands travelling firmly across her back. He must have noticed, for he grabbed her waist tightly, reassuring her position.

He was still dark, she knew that, but she had felt him change. Nymphadora Tonks could recognize metamorphosis, and he was experiencing it, along with her.

She knew she would taste the bitterness of his lips in the morning. She knew him; she knew she could not change dark. But at that moment it did not truly matter, after that night Tonks knew that she would always insist more. She couldn't let go now, she wasn't going to give up his intoxicating sense, his addictive nature. And she was sure it would be harder for him now. He was dark, yes, and insanely bitter, but she had just added a bit of sugar.

_A/N: What do you think? Review Please!!_


	3. Fleur Delacour

"_What have they really got in common? He's a hard-working, down-to-earth sort of person, whereas she's—" _

"_A Cow," said Ginny nodding. "But Bill is not _that_ down-to-earth. He's a curse breaker, isn't he, he likes a bit of adventure, a bit of glamour. I expect that's why he's gone for Phlegm". _

_Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince. (An Excess of Phlegm)_

_A/N: This chapter goes to Bill and Fleur. Quotes like this make me think that they are made for each other, not because they're perfect but because they accepted each other as they were from the very start. He was able to see beyond the label and she let herself learn from him._

**Common Misunderstandings**

With a gust of wind, the kitchen window clattered open once again. Fleur got up and closed it before the water invaded her immaculate kitchen floor. She wasn't going to fix the lock again, not even with magic. She had been fixing that window every time it rained since she lived in the flat and it always managed to break again. What annoyed her more was the constant banging the rain made against the glass. She could tell by the intensity of the clattering that it was going to be one of those long stormy nights.

The teapot began to shriek, an irritating sound that Fleur had been waiting for and it managed to drive her attention away from the clattering. She plucked it from the fire and grabbed a clean teacup. She settled for the kitchen table where she sat down and poured the substance into the cup. The steam was more than comforting. It was one of those cold nights where only tea could warm her properly. To top it all, it was one of those nights where she was having trouble falling asleep.

She heard a low roll of thunder a distance away and hoped it would stay distant. She hated thunder storms, and tonight it would only be the icing on a very depressing cake.

She had been living alone for a while now and she generally handled it very well. But some nights, like this one, she found her small, lonely and imperfect flat quite depressing. A thunder storm and a clattering window were dreary companions.

It wasn't easy living alone in London. She knew that now, just like her _maman _had known it, and just like her papa had known it, too. It was too different from her France, her house, her old school, her friends, her family.

Different had been good at first. The entire point of accepting that job at Gringotts had been to gain a little independence from home. She had handled the circumstances quite well; she was working hard at improving her English and by now she barely noticed the envious looks her female co-workers and indiscreet neighbors threw at her. Not that she ever paid attention to the other women's opinion about her. She was used to being admired by men and envied by women. None of that really bothered her. She knew she could manage alone and she was doing it marvelously. What really affected her once in a while was the absence of Gabrielle's laughter, her _maman_'s advice and her _papa_'s attention.

But to top it all, she had managed to complicate her life even more in the last few weeks. She had set her eyes, her attention, her entire energy on a red-haired, gorgeous man and none of it had been really worth it. It wasn't until then that she noticed how lonely she really was, how far she was from home and how different _he_ was from regular men.

The problem was that Fleur had never faced any true trouble with men. Most of them were easily impressed by her looks or were instantly stunned by the involuntary influence she had on them. But whenever a man situation had gotten complicated or out of control, Fleur Delacour had the privilege of relying on a tool few other women had: she had access to a small portion of the rare magic that only the _veela_ possessed. It was that same magic that could stun a man, or make him notice her whenever her natural skills hadn't previously worked.

She had discovered that weird power when she was little, and her _maman_ had explained it to her, letting her know that it wasn't always wise to use it. She had never truly listened to that last warning.

It was a strange thing, special but strange. Some may call it a gift. It was a gift, sure, but a completely useless one in the end. That's what _maman_ had tried to say to her, but she hadn't really cared to pay attention.

Fleur was raised with discipline and love, and she never found herself to be truly lonely, not until now. And it was all that Bill Weasley's fault. _He_ was the reason she felt so lonely and to make things worse he was the reason she still felt so embarrassed now.

Those veela qualities had never made her feel embarrassed before. Her _maman_ had assured her more than once that with her grace, cleverness and beauty she would never have to use them. _Maman_ had been wrong, of course. More than once her grace, cleverness and beauty had not been enough to catch a man's attention. But those few times she had used her special quality to get them to notice her.

Her papa, on the other hand, humble but loving, had always assured her that she was too much of a shining star to claim attention from any man at all. Of course, papa had been wrong too. Stars will never seek below them; they would rather aim for the moon or the sun instead. It was natural that she would aim for those men a bit more difficult to attract. It was not about being self-centered, it was just the basic rules of attraction.

That's when the veela qualities came in handy. They helped her impress men a little, to help them notice that she existed. She never saw anything wrong with that. After all, what was the point of having a gift if you are not going to use it?

She emptied the cup to the last drop, filled it with more steaming tea and looked at the noisy window. The storm outside was still very much alive and she could swear the cracks of thunder were getting a bit louder. She was in no mood for going to bed yet. She felt restless, and that too was Bill Weasley's fault.

She had spent the last few days trying to convince herself that he was an idiot. He had embarrassed her in the worst possible way, and yet he crossed her mind every five seconds.

Bill Weasley caught her attention the first time she saw him visiting Hogwarts. That was not a very common thing on her, but who wouldn't be intrigued by a man with his posture, his hair, his eyes and his natural smile. It was only natural that she felt instantly attracted. It wasn't anything special back then, but when she met him again and started to work around him in Gringotts it became unexplainably hard to not pay him any attention.

He was surprisingly nice and easy to talk to. He treated her like a person from the first day, not some French porcelain doll easy to break. He was not intimidated by her, and best of all, he was not ever intimidating toward her. He had even been kind enough to offer her help to improve her English once a week at the nearest library. But all that kindness only drew her to him more inextricably. She was doing a great job at being discreet about her feelings. She did not want to seem desperate or needy. She, Fleur Delacour, never seemed desperate in front of a man. It was supposed to be the other way around.

They began to spend a lot of time together, they ate lunch more than once and he invited her a couple of times to the pub around the corner, where they sat and talked for hours. Every minute she spent with him was a complete delight. She felt comfortable with their long talks: his interest in her stories of home and her fascination with his stories of Egypt. And then there was his breathtaking smile, something she could not stop noticing every time it appeared across his face. But she was worried that they were becoming nothing more than good friends. She was almost sure that a friendship was the only thing on his mind, for he behaved far too natural around her, and no man interested in her had ever behaved so naturally. Their friendly gatherings became very frequent but she still couldn't see any other sign from his side.

She remembered the night when he insisted on walking her home after spending a couple of hours together at the pub next to work. She told him it was not necessary, that she could simply apparate home. He said that it was late for her to be apparating alone and insisted on walking her home instead. She did not really see the point but she would never decline an opportunity to spend more time with him. When they arrived on her front step she noticed the rare silence taking over. She noticed how close to her he was standing, his hands carelessly hidden inside his pockets and his eyes carelessly staring into hers. For a moment she could swear she saw his head gently tilting down, approaching her face. But she later assumed it had been an illusion. He smiled, wished her a goodnight and took a step back. After that she convinced herself that he simply was not interested the way she was.

But that last disappointment did not change her ever-present feelings. She even caught herself staring at him intently more than once at work. Whenever this happened she looked to both sides to make sure no one was looking at her. It would be highly inappropriate for a girl like her to be so obvious. She was used to catching men staring at her, which was both flattering and uncomfortable, but she had never seen herself behaving like a common, desperate girl.

But she couldn't help it.

And after quite a few lunches and lots of long English tutoring hours she felt extremely disconcerted. Any other man would have tried his best move with her by now. She couldn't possibly understand what was wrong with him. The idea of him seeing her as one more of his female friends started to scare her.

One night, while she was sitting by him at their traditional table at the library, so close she could sense his breathing, hearing him pronounce to her the same word over and over with his perfect, tough British accent, she realized she could sit there all night hearing him speak, even if they were incoherent sentences, even if she would never get that pronunciation right. It didn't matter. She was too into him to care about the English language, or home, or work, or anything for that matter.

What she did that night was completely involuntary. After staring at his lips as they moved smoothly, wondering how smooth they would feel pressed against hers she surprised herself using her natural veela skills. When she realized what she was doing it was too late to stop it. She was releasing her "charms" on him, those same charms she was used to release on guys whose attention was hard to attract. This time though, they had released themselves. A second later Bill looked like he had just been hit by the worst stunning charm ever used. He was having trouble to speak. She felt highly embarrassed, for she knew that any mature man could recognize a veela charm when it hit him at such short distance.

Two seconds later though, she felt nothing but confused. After acting lost and disconcerted for a moment, Bill got a hold of himself. He frowned at her for a few seconds, creating a very uncomfortable silence, but didn't seem to believe what had just happened. She held her breath, feeling both embarrassed and intrigued. But to her huge disappointment he simply retook the last paragraph he was reading to her as if nothing had happened at all. She didn't get it. Her charms had always worked.

The next day at work she decided to try it out one more time, just to clear her curiosity. This time she would be doing it on purpose, and she was sure it would have a more meaningful effect on him. He would notice her for the girl she was and not the mate he was helping to get accustomed to London. So when he waved at her on the entrance of the bank she saw her opportunity to stun him for the second time.

But this time she felt even worst. He had the exact same reaction than the night before. After acting disconcerted for a couple of seconds he simply kept walking without turning back. She didn't understand it. She didn't know what she was doing wrong. She even questioned her powers, wondering if they could wear out. She tried to act as natural as possible around him for the next few days, but the desperation never really left her.

One afternoon while she entered Gringotts after her lunch break she saw him crossing the room, and couldn't help but smile as she saw him walk by, he simply turned his head slightly, smiled a little at her and kept on walking. Fleur was too tired of the smiles and long conversations, she wanted him to finally notice her like every other breathing man had noticed her before. She impulsively decided to try her abilities one more time. She didn't stop to think of what she was about to do. She simply concentrated as hard as she could. As a result he turned around and looked straight at her, unfortunately for him he forgot to stop walking. He ran against a column too big to simply miss. The accident made a loud echoed noise that made every member of the hall turn around. To make things worst he instantly fell to the floor. Fleur froze on her spot. That was _not_ supposed to happen to him. She knew she had gone too far this time. She heard the laughter of her coworkers, and other people ran to Bill to help him stand up—mostly women. She stood several feet away from him, but as soon as he got up with one hand on his bleeding head, he turned around to look at her again. His face was easy to read. He wasn't stunned anymore, and he certainly wasn't pleased. His frown said it all. She felt horribly embarrassed; she finally realized how stupid she had been. She turned around and walked as far away from him as she could, trying to forget the look he had thrown her, but of course, she couldn't.

She avoided him the first two days, and he did not exert much effort trying to talk to her either. For the first time in her life she cursed her envied gift. She knew how unwise it was to use it without measuring the consequences.

A few days went by before she had the courage to look at him again, and another few days went by before she felt strong enough to talk to him. But she still ran out of work every afternoon, avoiding all chance of seeing him. One night, though, while exiting Gringotts, she found him standing in the corner she always took to walk to her flat. She breathed deeply and approached looking as natural and glamorous as always. He still exhibited a small wound on his forehead.

"Hey," he smiled.

"'Ello."

"Going home?"

"Yes, of course."

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

"I'm sorry, forgetting what?"

"It's Tuesday night! Remember? I help you with your English every Tuesday night!"

"Oh! Yes, of course! I completely forgot, I'm sorry."

"You forgot."

"Yes."

"Anyway, it doesn't matter. Do you want to get something to drink instead?"

"No, zank you Beell, I zink is best to do zis some ozer night, I'm very tired today."

"Oh, yeah, sure, no problem."

"Okay, good night Beell. I will see you tomorrow." She passed him to resume her direction but he grabbed her arm gently. The smooth touch of his fingers was enough reason for her to stop walking immediately.

"Fleur, wait." He hesitated. "Just one question before you leave..."

She nodded, but a long, uncomfortable pause announced her that she wasn't going to enjoy the following question.

"Are you...avoiding me?"

"What? No! Why would I avoid you? I am tired, zat's all."

"Right...well, listen, I need to talk to you."

"Talk? Now? About what?"

He breathed deeply, she felt her heart speed up. He was still holding her arm.

"Okay, listen Fleur, please don't take this the wrong way but that thing you did a couple days ago, I know what it was."

"What zing?"

"Could you please not do it again? I mean—"

"What?" Her stomach flipped. She shook her arm hard enough to free herself from his hand.

"No wait! Listen Fleur—"

"What are you trying to insinuate?"

"Fleur, listen to me, I—"

"I 'ave no idea of what you're talking about!"

"Fleur, please listen—wait a minute. What do you mean you have no idea? You know exactly what I'm talking about."

"I do not!" she wasn't controlling her anger. She didn't mind looking upset in front of him, letting him know how angry she was.

"Fleur you were right there, you made me walk into a column!"

"I cannot believe zis! You wait for me 'ere to insult me?" She was compulsively denying her actions, but she wasn't faking her indignation. The idea of a man confronting her was both embarrassing and unforgivable.

"Insult you? I'm not insulting you! You're barely letting me talk!" she was beginning to notice that he had lost his sweet regular tone of voice.

"Talk? You actually need to say somezing else?"

Yes, as a matter of fact I do need to tell you something else."

"Zis is unbelievable. I 'ave never been so insulted in my life!"

"Yeah, well that makes two of us now Fleur," His face of indignation was matching hers.

"You zink zat because I'm part veela you are allowed to blame me for not looking forward when you walk?"

"What? Fleur I can't believe you're denying this! It wasn't even the first time you did it. I noticed what happened at the library a few days ago."

She was speechless. She knew he had noticed what had happened. She wanted to bury herself under six feet of ground, but at the same time she wanted to hit him for being the reason she felt so embarrassed. Acknowledging her silence, he kept talking.

"What about that night last week? Remember? When I walked you home after the pub because it was late? Are you going to deny that too?"

"What? Eet was not me zat night!" She realized her mistake. He arched his eyebrow.

"Oh, so then you do take credit for the night at the library?"

She muted for a couple of seconds. A small smile started to grow on his lips, which only increased her anger.

"I do not need to stay 'ere listening to zis! Zis is ridiculous! You find yourself so irresistible to zink zat all women come crawling for you?"

"Fleur, you know that wasn't what I meant," the small smile vanished from his face again.

"Are you so conceited zat you zink every girl is going to attempt to capzure your precious attention?" By now she was talking compulsively.

"What? Wait Fleur, _I'm_ conceited? I don't recall _me_ stunning people with special powers to gain their attention."

She stopped with her mouth still open. She had never been called that by a man in her life. She turned around and walked away.

"Fleur," she heard him say once but before she could hesitate she closed her eyes and thought intently of her flat. She apparated there a second later.

The rattling of the window increased. Fleur woke from her thoughts and noticed that the storm was getting worse. She realized she needed to drive her attention away from Bill Weasley. Remembering didn't make things any better. After that fight they had barely spoken to each other. It had been almost a week now and she was getting better at avoiding him every day.

She could not stand to look at him. She felt she had damaged any possible hope of something happening between them. She was too embarrassed and too angry, partly with him, but mainly with herself. She had been, after all, the reason for his accident and she had been the one that started the fight by denying something that was already too obvious. When she thought about everything she could only blame herself and her silly veela features. Another roll of thunder made her jump off the chair. But along with the thunder came another disturbing noise. When she got herself calmed again she realized the new noise belonged to a constant banging of the door to her flat. She looked up at the small clock on the wall, it was almost midnight.

Fleur picked her wand from the kitchen table. After participating in the Triwizard Tournament she had developed the habit of remaining alert when something didn't inspire her confidence. She waited for a few seconds. The knocking on the door begun once more, this time louder. She walked to the front door and opened it just a crack, holding her wand high.

"You," she whispered and opened the door with more confidence. Still, she stood in the middle of the frame and the door, blocking the way in, with one hand holding dependably to the wood, making it clear that he belonged outside, in the rain.

Bill stood under the frenetic shower of water.

"Sorry, it's late, I know."

"Did you come 'ere to insult me again?"

"I need to talk to you."

"At zis 'our?"

"Yes."

"What do you want?"

"You know...it's cold and wet out here."

"Yes, I can see zat." She held the door firmly, she wasn't going to let him cross.

He stood still, but she could see him breathing heavily. His eyes were set on hers.

"Bill, whatever eet is I am sure eet can wait until tomorrow."

"It can't."

"You shouldn't be 'ere."

"I already am."

"Eet's raining, you will get sick."

"I can't stop thinking about you." His clothes were drenched. His hands were still hidden inside his pockets. She felt her chest rising. Another roll of thunder, though this one was further and it didn't startle her like before. He was looking her in the eyes and she wasn't looking away.

"Is zat so?" she said softly.

"I don't know what it is that you're doing to me, but it's getting worse. You're the only thought crossing my mind and that can't be right, and this last week has been hell—"

"What do you mean with what I'm doing to you? I am not doing anyzing! Don't flatter yourself so much! If anything I 'ave been trying to stay away from you!"

"Yeah, I noticed, I'm not talking about your veela powers anymore."

"Oh... what are you talking about, zen?"

"You," he said simply, shrugging his shoulders, taking a small step towards her. Her hands were nailed to the door, the rest of her body was begging her to let go. She was speechless. What she had been waiting to hear had just been said, and she couldn't pronounce a word back. She let her eyes wander across the street to find relief for how awkward she felt. An old lady that lived across the street was looking at them indiscreetly from her window. Fleur knew she was disapproving the late visit.

"I—why now? I zought you didn't—why are you saying zis now?" she asked.

"Fleur... I couldn't care less about teaching English, and yet I spent hours in that library with you." She smiled to that last, resting her face on the wooden door. The rain was beginning to calm, but he was still standing underneath it, pretending that he didn't notice. He pushed his wet hair away from his face, a very useless task, for in a matter of seconds it rearrange itself across his forehead, managing to cover his eyes. She guarded her silence, concentrating on the sensations the image of him was causing her.

After a paused silence he approached her more, daring to put a step beneath the door frame to her flat, wet as he was. She, still holding the door for support, didn't move back. She felt her skin shivering, he cleared his throat.

"What happened the other night...I think we owe each other an apology."

"Really?" He nodded. "Alright zen, go a'ead."

"Okay, I'll start. I'm sorry if what I said embarrassed you"

"'Umiliated me..."

"Alright...if that's how you felt...I'm sorry. That wasn't supposed to happen."

She let a small smile escape her face.

"I think it's your turn."

"Very well. I'm sorry I yelled at you."

"That's it? You're sorry for yelling at me?" He said laughing.

"Yes," she answered with nature. "Why else would I 'ave to apologise for?"

"How about for smacking me into a solid piece of rock? That was pretty humiliating," he said smiling but arching his eyebrow at the same time, an action too irresistible to ignore.

"Alright," she looked away from his eyes and contemplated the small, almost invisible wound on his forehead. "I am sorry for zat."

"Oh, good. You're not denying it anymore."

"...the night you walked me 'ome...I did not do anyzing, I—"

"I know. I was just trying to get you to confess."

"You zink too much of yourself."

"That's not true." He shook his head slowly, with his stare firm on hers. He didn't say a word for a moment.

"What stopped you?"

"I didn't want to get slapped for being too direct. In return you got me crashed against a column. Is that what you girls do back in France when a guy isn't being clear enough?"

"Well, we do not play games in France."

"That wasn't playing games. That was my desperate attempt of getting to know you better, what's so wrong about that?" She felt the blood of her body rising to her face. She wasn't used to having to wait that much for a man. The space that remained between them was beginning to feel like an abyss. She felt words gathering in her throat.

"I didn't mean to do any of zat. Eet was...an accident and zen eet got out of control." He approached even more, grabbing her petite chin with one hand.

"It was all very unnecessary," he whispered when he was close enough. His lips were already rubbing hers. That was him: patient, gentle and a teaser when it came to conquering a woman's full attention. He could take all the time in the world as long as he did things properly. She, on the other hand, felt she didn't have that amount of time to spare, but the experience of the previous days had taught her that, when it came to the British redhead, it could be worth it to show a little patience.

"Eet's your fault," she whispered to his mouth, closing her eyes but remaining still.

"My fault?"

"Yes. You are too—"

He didn't need to listen to that last and she would never complain for the interruption. He had crossed the small line that maintained him on the other side of the door, the same line that had been keeping their lips from meeting; she wasn't blocking the way in anymore. Her hands had finally released the wooden door and were settling for his arms. She forgot about the storm and her previous session of homesickness already seemed like days ago. Her flat was not at all lonely anymore.

"You're wet," she said the minute they broke apart, letting her breath again. He laughed softly.

"That's thanks to you."

"I 'ave tea," she said gracefully, trying to sound as casual as possible. She looked across the street again. The old woman hid behind the curtains of the window. Fleur knew she was giving her material for tomorrow's gossiping.

He came in an accepted a cup that later turned into countless ones. They sat on the kitchen table and she prepared a teapot after another. He left two hours later, when he noticed the time and pointed out that she needed to sleep (she had noticed how late it was long before him but kept that information to herself).

He kissed her once more on her front step. She noticed the old lady sneaking again behind the curtain. How she managed to be there at that precise time was a mystery she didn't care to solve.

The raining had stopped by now, and before leaving he told her he would come back the next day to fix that insanely annoying window. She watched him as he leaved. He walked into a dark street, from where a clear _pop_ was heard. She would certainly wait for the next day, as patiently as possible.

_A/N: Thanks for taking the time to read it. I loved writing Bill and Fleur, she's a very rich character and he's irresistible. Your comments will be highly appreciated, so please remember to leave a review_


	4. Ginny Weasley

"_Right", said Ron, who looked extremely put out, "this is getting stupid. Ginny, you can go with Harry, and I'll just—"_

"_I can't," said Ginny, and she went Scarlet too. "I'm going with Neville. He asked me when Hermione said no and I thought...well...I'm not going to be able to go otherwise, I'm not in fourth year." She looked extremely miserable. "I think I'll go and have dinner," she said, and she got up and walked out the portrait hole, her head bowed._

_Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. Chapter 22._

**The magnitude of small secrets**

She isn't very sure of what she just agreed to. She isn't sure if it was the impulse of the moment, of her huge desires of going, even if that means going with Neville. Maybe it's resignation, she thinks. Yes, she's sure that's the thing, and that makes her feel silly, and almost ridiculous.

The entire thing is ridiculous. He asked Hermione first, and _she_ turned him down. Ginny knows she's the second best he could find. But that isn't what's really bothering her, because Neville isn't even her second choice anyway. He is her only choice if she wants to go to the Yule Ball. If Ginny is to wait for her first, correction, real choice she might as well grow weeds. _He_ will never ask her, and she's a fool for even considering it. But she won't follow Hermione's advice. It's not her fault, she just can't move on, she can't let go. She realizes she's being ridiculous, but she won't let go. That's when Neville comes in. They're friends...well, sort of, and there's nothing wrong about going to the Ball with a friend, at least she'll get to go.

She smiles after minutes of retrospective.

She smiles to fool herself a little.

He isn't her first choice, but they are friends and that should be enough.

Her smile is interrupted by Ron's loud complaining. She snaps when he suggests that no one would want to go to the Ball with Neville. She demands that he stops laughing and starts to feel stupid again for agreeing to go with him.

Almost immediately she senses Ron getting on Hermione's nerves in the most obvious way. Hermione storms out and Ginny can't blame her one bit. Ron looks stunned at the thought of Hermione going with a mystery man to the Ball. Ginny can't help but smiling again. She refuses to tell Ron who the mystery man is and she's almost enjoying the sudden misery of her brother until he spits the painful words:

"Right. This is getting stupid. Ginny, you can go with Harry and I'll jus—"

She stops smiling again.

"I can't...I'm going with Neville," she says painfully.

She blushes insanely. It's good luck her hair is red and her freckles help camouflage the high temperature of her face.

She feels so stupid. Her smart brother couldn't have suggested that arrangement a little earlier? The simple idea of going with Harry, even just as friends, is naive but it's the only arrangement that makes sense. Stupid Ron, too slow and too late.

She explains why she accepted to go with Neville to the Ball, to make it clear she isn't interested in him. No point on doing that, he's not even looking straight at her. She could be talking about going with the giant squid and he still wouldn't notice she's right there.

She stands up and walks out feeling as stupid as she knows she looks.

But it doesn't matter, he's not even looking straight at her.

--

Neville steps on her feet about fifteen times, and about fifteen times he says he's sorry. She's not paying attention anymore, she's more concerned with what's surrounding her. She can't help but glancing every once in a while towards Harry. It's not very hard to find him. He's been sitting in the same place next to Ron for the past hour, both looking miserable. Her eyes sway around the room and for a couple of minutes she savours other people's luck. Fred and Angelina are taking over the centre of the room, half dancing, half teasing around. Far behind them she can spot Krum, he refuses to take his eyes off of Hermione, he doesn't seem to mind how obvious he is.

Ginny realizes how different Hermione looks. She probably wouldn't recognize her if it weren't because she spent hours watching Hermione applying the most complex charms on her hair. Hermione twirls around in the most gracious moves and she eventually gets lost in the waves of couples.

Her eyes bump by accident against Cho and Cedric, far too into each other. Ginny immediately turns her head towards Harry's direction. There he is, sitting by Ron and their two unlucky dates, and staring at Cho. Her heart shrinks an inch. What deepens her sadness is that she knows that Harry's heart is shrinking as well and, just like Harry himself, Cho is fully oblivious.

She suddenly realizes how smooth the last minutes with Neville have been. He hasn't stepped on her. She looks at him and smiles. Unlike her he's completely concentrated. His eyes are fixed on their feet, and he's doing his very best. He looks up and blushes slightly.

Ginny realizes that she wouldn't change poor Pavarti's or Padma's luck with hers. At the very least, she got a real date, not perfect, just real.

Ginny relaxes and starts to enjoy the rest of the night. Neville doesn't leave her unattended. He gets her drinks, spilling them occasionally, and makes sure she's comfortable enough. He even manages to make her laugh once. At one point of the night she admits she's having a good time.

The night follows its own course. She gets to meet some students she's never spoke to before and while Neville gets her another drink, a stranger approaches her. He's a rather handsome Ravenclaw who introduces himself as Michael Corner. He shows the effort of keeping the conversation alive and he even asks her to dance rather earnestly. She sees Neville approaching and chooses not to be rude to her actual date. She leaves Michael with a very disappointed face.

The night is reaching its end and Ginny leaves the room with Neville, her feet are beating with pain, but she's not tired at all. They walk around the garden to get some fresh air, mostly because they have nothing better to do. Neville talks extensively about something related to an amazing plant discovered in Australia. She doesn't find anything amazing about it but she lets him talk. It's the least she can do.

Ginny sees Lavender embracing Seamus in a dark corner. Neville blushes, but pretends he hasn't seen anything. They reach a dead end, something that Ginny doesn't realize, for she's busy realizing that until now, she hasn't thought of Harry in hours. Somewhere between the drinks and the new people she forgot to look towards him.

Her own surprise is broken when she hears Neville calling her name. She realizes he's leaning strangely close to her.

"Ginny, could you please m—"

She's unaware of the reason but she shortens the distance between their faces. She's not looking him in the eyes, but staring at his lower cheek. She knows they're too close, and just when she's about to pull back he touches her lips with his. It's short and even soft. It's not long enough to actually understand. She pulls back faster than she can manage and notices his cheeks, ears and chin going scarlet, matching her face, of course.

She has no real words for the kiss except the weird rush she's used to feel when something new happens to her.

Neville opens his mouth, trying to spell something out. His surprised face stuns her and she realizes what's going on. She realizes she misunderstood Neville's moves.

"Neville...what where you going to say before?"

"Um...I was—I mean—I—"

"Neville!"

"I was going to ask you if you could move a little to get the door open."

She notices he's still leaning towards her and, to her huge embarrassment, she can see that he is in fact holding the knob of a door she hadn't noticed.

Ginny can sense her skin turning purple, she can't possibly be more embarrassed. She labels that as one the most awkward moments of her life.

"But it's okay, I mean...I didn't mind—no. That's not what I meant," says Neville realizing that it's all an awkward mistake from both sides.

They mute and walk silently to the common room. She's glad Neville stays quiet. When they reach the stairs to her dorm he says good night, eyes fixed on the floor.

She mumbles back at him, but before she can run upstairs and disappear she stops for a moment and realizes how selfish she's being.

"Hey Neville..."

He turns his head at her.

"Thanks... for everything." She blushes again and runs upstairs.

She feels the sudden need to tell somebody. It's all messy in her head, weird, unreal and for Merlin's sake: It's Neville. She skips the door to her room and walks into Hermione's but what she finds deserves more attention than her latest experience. She finds the room empty, except for Hermione who's sitting in the bed, still wearing her beautiful blue gown, now slightly wrinkled and somehow messy. The bun of her hair is almost gone now. Heavy locks and curls obscure her face. Her eyes show black lines of eyeliner running down her still-pink cheeks.

"What happened?"

"I hate Ron."

She walks in and sits by her on the bed. Hermione isn't very explicit –she never is when it comes to Ron- buy Ginny listens and stays with her for quite a while.

Ginny doesn't attempt to tell anyone after that night, and after long hours of thinking it through her mind clears and it all seems unbelievable. She realizes she doesn't really need to share it, since it would be like accepting it all happened in the first place.

She can't look at Neville in the face for weeks, and she knows he's having the same problem, for he's terrible at hiding his embarrassment. But what's more frustrating is that she can't look at Harry in the eyes either, afraid he might read through her –not that he'll ever notice-, worst: not that he'll ever care.

She feels tempted to tell Hermione again when she hears her talking about her first kiss with Krum, but she rejects that possibility. The weird satisfaction of knowing that she has to share her small secret with no one but Neville is beginning to fascinate her.

She doesn't forget the details of that kiss, for they are the ones that make all of Hermione's previous advice significant. Since the beginning of the year Hermione had told her to try to relax around Harry, to start looking at other boys. For Ginny that had been easier said than done, but it isn't until the Yule Ball when she understands how wise Hermione is, and she has Neville to thank for that too.

She doesn't talk about it with Neville again but the embarrassment fades. After almost a month, they don't act awkward around each other anymore. She wonders if it meant something more to him or if she was his first kiss too, but she doesn't think that she should ask. She feels better having him as a friend, it's not necessary to complicate something as simple as that. Besides, she doesn't want to give him a wrong impression again, once was enough.

She starts running into Michael Corner in the halls more often, and after a while she agrees to go out with him. He takes the credit for being the first guy to kiss her, and she never tells him the truth. It really doesn't matter; it wouldn't make a difference to anyone but her.

--

She does tell someone many years later. One night she shares what's left of a bottle of Firewhisky with Hermione. They talk and laugh and share random memories and occasional confessions. Hers was the least random of all. Hermione almost chokes with her drink and makes her swear she's telling the truth. They both laugh compulsively before Hermione asks for details.

She doesn't speak to anybody about it again, not even Harry, he would be the last one to know. Unlike him, who had to keep many secrets from her during their teenage years, that moment is the one thing she'll never tell him.

--

Ginny sits on the grass in the yard of the Burrow. Inside the house Harry's birthday is going on but she's been feeling too nauseous lately to be around so many people. She's not worried about being sick, she knows she's perfectly healthy. In fact, she knows exactly why she's been feeling so nauseous. She watches young Albus chasing gnomes as she hears someone approaching her from behind.

"Hey." Neville carries over Anya, his young daughter. He puts her down and sits by Ginny. Anya runs towards Albus and joins in the gnome hunting.

"She can't stand so many people in one room," he explains referring to her daughter. "She's the quiet kind, and too shy. She'd rather be out here, I guess".

Ginny laughs at the resemblance.

"Then I guess we know who she's like."

Neville smiles with his eyes fixed on the two young kids who seem to get along just fine.

There's a long silence. They both stare at their children, hearing their laughter, so vivid and so close. After a while Ginny isn't sure how long it's been since Neville joined her.

"Hey Neville..." She keeps her eyes concentrated in the kids, especially on Albus whose resemblance to Harry makes her heart go soft each time she stares at him.

"Yeah?" Neville is also concentrated on his daughter.

"Thanks."

He turns his head at her. "What? For what?"

She shrugs her shoulders. "For everything," she states simply.

He stares at her confused, the shape of his eyebrows show deep concentration. He's obviously trying to understand what she's saying. Ginny laughs and after a while his face softens, he understands what she meant. She's glad he didn't forget after all these years, and although he'll never know the effect that little naive kiss had on her, and the turn her life had after it, she had to thank him again.

"Um...you're welcome?" He says before he laughs as well, his face amused. They remain still for a couple of minutes before going in. They never mention it again.

_A/N: People please Remember to review!! The next one is almost done. Thanks for reading!! Any character request??_


	5. Angelina Johnson

_A/N: People thank you for your reviews so far and thank you for__ making character requests. I'm already working on some of those!_

_So here goes Angelina and George! Not a very welcomed couple...but I happen to like them. _

_I was listening to 'Bent' by Matchbox 20 when I wrote some parts of this. I think that song describes them pretty well. Anyway...here's my version. This took me a while to write so, please, give it a try! _

**Magic Realism**

"George?" I asked the thin guy with long red hair standing in front of me, in the middle of Diagon Alley, his arms busy with boxes.

"Angelina?" He smiled, or at least it looked like a smile. It was hard to tell. I tried my best to say something different than the pathetic '_How have you been?' _people say when they are uncomfortable, because that wasn't just some guy. That was George, one of my closest friends at Hogwarts; George, the guy who only months ago lost the most important person of his life; George, who had distanced himself from his friends. I, for one, hadn't seen him in months. George, the person who reminded me that Fred was never going to be with him or any of us again.

"So...how are things?" I asked. That was just as pathetic.

"Things are alright."

"I'm sorry. That was a lame question."

"No, I'm alright."

"How's business? I heard the shop's doing well again."

"Yeah, I've got a lot of work, can't complain about that. I even have to admit Ron's been more than helpful."

"Good." I couldn't come up with anything better to say. I wasn't sure if he wanted to talk to me or wanted me to leave.

"Well...it's getting cold," he said. It really was cold, we were crossing November, but I took that as a dismissal.

"Right. Well, it was nice to see y—"

"The shop is just around the corner. We won't freeze to death there." He turned around, and a second later I followed him.

The shop looked great; every stand was filled with merchandise. I sat on a stool next to the counter and tried to break the ice, but the ice broke itself, we didn't find it hard to get along again. Actually, he acted as if we had seen each other the day before that. We hadn't, of course. He hadn't seen any of us. He wouldn't go out with us or return our letters, he had successfully shut us out, all of us except for Lee, and even Lee complained about how hard it was to talk to George sometimes. At first we all tried to stay close to him but we ended up giving him space, because we realized it was the only thing he wanted from us anymore.

But that day he was trying to behave like his old self again. He looked tired, but he kept smiling, coming up with a joke from time to time. He told me he didn't live at the flat above the shop anymore. He said it was because his family wanted to stay together after all that had happened. It seemed reasonable but I didn't believe it, there was much more behind that, just like there was much more behind his lost of weight and his worn out smile.

We talked like the friends we were, he even mentioned Fred more than once, in a very natural way, and I tried to act as calm as possible. When we noticed how late it was I helped him put everything away and said goodbye, but before we took our separate ways he hugged me, and I hugged him back, hoping it would help at least a little. I walked home alone that night, but it was nice getting to see him again and knowing that, in spite of everything he was...okay...

--

A week later the weather got worse. On my way home I walked into a pub to get a few seconds of warm air and at the end of the room I saw that same frail guy with red messy hair, sitting alone at a table with a glass of what seemed to be Firewhisky.

"Hey," I said once I was in front of him.

"Hi!" He sounded surprised.

"I'm sorry, are you waiting for someone?"

"No, that's alright. Just me."

I took the liberty of sitting down. I never asked permission to sit next to George before.

"So...do you come here a lot?" I had to ask, the picture of a man drinking alone constantly is never a good sign.

"Yeah, often enough."

"Alone?" I tried to make it sound casual, not like I was judging him, which I actually was.

"Sure, except when people find me."

I felt involved in that last comment, and worst, a little insulted.

"Alright then, I'll leave if you want," I tried to get up from the chair but in a fast move he stopped me, holding my arm.

"No...that's okay. Stay."

"Right...okay."

"Firewhisky?" he asked. I hadn't drunk firewhisky in a while, but I didn't hesitate.

"Please."

We sat together, casually, like two friends who had just played a Quidditch match and were catching up on their stories, and just like the previous week we didn't find it hard to talk at all.

"Do you know what I really hate?" he asked four hours later having emptied another glass to the last drop. I had been drinking half of his amount. For each two of his firewhiskeys I drank one. But that was enough to make me feel the effects of the drink. All the remaining tension was far gone and we had been talking about Fred for the last half hour.

"What?" I asked.

"I hate it when people pretend he never existed. What the hell is wrong with them?" He gestured at the barman and the man understood the sign right away. "It's stupid," he kept on, already having difficulty enunciating properly. "They think it makes me feel better to pretend he was never born."

"Don't mind them. Those are the people you should shut out of your life," I said, recognizing that I, too, was having trouble trying to speak properly. Another round of Firewhisky flew across the room and landed on our tables. I grabbed one glass and George was already drinking from his.

"Do you know what's even worst? When people act as if I were the dead one. They see me and avoid me."

"They just don't know what to say, George."

"Oh, poor them. It must be horrible to talk to me, how can I be so inconsiderate?" I laughed at his sarcasm, and he grinned back at me.

"Let me remind you George, that you are the one that has been avoiding us for the past three months." He stopped laughing and drank again.

"Oh yeah, I was hoping we wouldn't get to that."

"We don't have to get to that." I had to admit I didn't want to ruin the moment.

"Thanks." He smiled again.

We resumed the conversation, and with each sip of alcohol we laughed harder at each other. We kept that going for another couple of hours. We laughed at every comment the other one made, humorous or not. I started to forget the reason I was sitting there. I was beginning to enjoy myself too much and half of the things didn't even seem real. I forgot what day of the week it was, I even forgot what month it was. The only thing there that I understood was that George and I were having a great time.

When we finally got out of the pub I found it hard to walk, and he made fun of me for two blocks. Generally I would have gotten mad, but that night wasn't very general.

"You're drunk." He stated.

"Shut up."

"I'll walk you home."

"Oh, please, you're worst than I am." He shook his head a little too aggressively.

We walked and laughed together, apparating would have been stupid. Every silly thing in the air was a reason to laugh about. I couldn't remember the last time I drank so carelessly. I would have never imagined it would be with him.

We finally reached the main entrance to what I recognized as my flat. At first I couldn't find the keys, which only made him laugh harder. When I found them I couldn't focus properly to place them in the lock.

"Give me that," he said taking the keys from my hands. On his second try he was able to unlock the door. "See," he handed me my key back. "You're more drunk than I am. You're a terrible drinker."

"I believe that's a compliment," I said putting my key away. "Anyway, thanks for the drinks, it was fun."

"What? I thought you paid!" I laughed with him for a couple of seconds.

"Alright then, thanks to the nice barman for the drinks. I have to go in now."

"Right, see you around. We should do this again," he said. I smiled. The Firewhisky was certainly doing its job, or so I assumed. My head felt light, and I was way happier than I should have been. It was all unreal and childish, as if Fred had never died, as if we were back at Hogwarts and George was the one taking me to the Yule Ball. It all felt so out of place, and yet strangely enough, everything made sense.

I placed a hand on the doorknob, ready to go in, and the other one on his shoulder, trying to be supportive or maybe trying to support myself, I'm not sure.

"It was nice seeing you again George. Take care." I admit it took me a while to let go of his shoulder, but that didn't justify his following reaction.

With both of his hands he grabbed me by the waist with a move almost violent. He stared at me for a couple of seconds. I didn't move, and I didn't say a word. He leaned in and touched my lips with his once, short and unreadable. He looked at me again, he was waiting for my reaction, but my state of shock didn't let me react. Again, I didn't speak at all. He leaned forward and kissed me once more, and this time I took part in it. After a moment I wrapped one hand around his neck. He pressed me against the door, which swung open. We walked our way in, untangled. With a kick he closed the door behind us and I led the way through my flat. A while later it all went black.

--

I opened my eyes, responding to the heavy day light that was sneaking through the window. I moved across the sheets, _my_ sheets, in _my_ flat. I felt him move as well. My head felt heavy, my throat was dry, and my eyes sore. In a second I remembered everything. I turned around and saw him, staring at me with wide eyes. None of us spoke, and the reality of the situation hit me.

With a sudden move I sat on the bed, not being able to believe myself, wanting to blame the Firewhisky, but I couldn't have been that drunk because I remembered everything. He, like me, was just realizing what had happened. He copied my sitting position and took both of his hands to his face, covering his eyes and mouth. He didn't say a word, and I didn't want him to.

I never saw anybody dressing as fast. As a matter of fact, I never saw myself dressing as fast.

"We we drunk." I said to myself, but out loud.

"Yes, we were drunk."

"We are friends. We don't do this!" I said, almost yelling. He looked at me for a moment. His face was very confused.

"I...my...my shoe!"

"What?"

"I need my shoe," he said again. He was looking for it desperately, he obviously needed to get out of the house...and fast. I ran out of the room and searched in the living room. The shoe actually appeared under the coffee table. I gave it to him, avoiding his eyes.

"We'll just put this behind, we'll forget about it," he finally said. For some reason that last comment upset me even more. He said it with an amount of simplicity that was just ridiculous.

"George...just go."

--

We didn't see each other for almost two weeks. I kept myself as far as I could from his shop. I was all messed up. What made him take that first step? I didn't know. But what made _me_ play along? I didn't know that either.

I kept thinking about everything, but especially about Fred. I wasn't sure if it was guilt, or just the anxiety to set things right. Fred and I as a "couple" had been a long time ago. Actually, we never even were a real couple. We dated on the Yule ball night, we had a great time and we had a couple of dates after that, but that was it. We never even broke up, one day we were over, just like that. We didn't even make it past one month. It was all very childish, and we were distracted with other things that were going on that year, so we kept on being friends. I never assumed there was any real chemistry going on between us.

But we earned ourselves a label after that. I guess it was because we were friends that people expected us to be serious about our relationship. His entire family found out that we dated -or tried to date- which really pissed him off. And even my family found out, but that's just thanks to Katie's big mouth when she visited me during the summer.

And you would think that labels ware off eventually, but this one didn't. Only a couple of months ago I saw Ron Weasley -George's little brother- and as we both stopped for a moment to chat, a girl whose name I don't even remember greeted us and reminded us that Fred wasn't with us anymore. She must have studied at Hogwarts because she knew Ron and me. She gave her condolences to Ron and then she turned to me to say something like: _"I'm really sorry you lost your boyfriend."_ My impulsive reaction was: _"My what?"_ But I didn't deny it, since it would have been highly inappropriate to start an explained discussion with Ron there.

And then there I was. Trying to convince myself that what George and I had done was a huge mistake, when to be honest it didn't feel like a mistake at all.

Staying away from George's shop didn't work for long, and one night, when I walked home from the park I use to apparate, I found him standing on my doorstep. He spotted me from across the street and we walked until we met half way. I couldn't stop noticing the knot that was growing in my throat.

We didn't say anything, instead we stood still for a while. I wasn't going to be the first one to talk, as I desperately wanted to hear him first.

"That was one weird morning," he said, breaking the silence.

"George, that was one weird night."

"The night didn't feel weird...not from my point of view..."

"George!"

He laughed at the embarrassment of my face. I pretended to be insulted by the comment, but I wasn't. Of course it didn't feel weird for me either, it felt great. But that was exactly what was so weird...

He looked at me for a moment, but I was determined to remain as silent as possible. I knew he was trying to intimidate me just by looking at me. I know George, better than other girls, and he's the kind of guy who uses his shameless jokes and his sexy grin to intimidate women, I think it's his tension breaker.

"What am I doing here?" He asked with what seemed like an innocent smile.

"I don't know. You tell me."

He took a while to answer. He raised his eyes to focus on something else other than me.

"The thing is..." he started when he looked back at me, "I can't seem to blame it all on the Firewhisky..." The knot in my throat grew an inch. "But... I don't really know what's going on here..."

"Me either," I admitted.

We remained silent again. I wanted to find the perfect words to tell him how confused I was without scaring him off. Since when did I have so much trouble talking to him? Well...that question pretty much answers itself.

"Do you want to find out?" with those little words he made it all seem simple again. The tables turned, suddenly a little door of possibilities was opening, a door I didn't think existed.

"We can do that."

He walked closer and leaned. If I was looking for a moment to retrieve then that was it. But I didn't, I stayed still. He kissed me, very different than the first time. There wasn't any Firewhisky, but my head was spinning.

--

Without thinking it through, without planning anything we started seeing each other frequently. We met at hidden, little known pubs, Muggle cafés, and mostly at my flat. We held careless conversations about our childhood, our family, and remembered Hogwarts together.

But we didn't find enough reasons to make our encounters a public matter. Back then it made sense to hide: it was exiting. But hiding is never the best way to act, because hiding just means you're not strong enough to face something.

It was weird and familiar at the same time. When I was alone my mind developed hundreds of questions. I knew I wasn't acting right. Fred's death was too recent and I knew George was still very fragile, contrary to what he showed.

We were playing a dangerous game. I knew we were playing on the wrong court and we weren't following the rules. It was fun, exciting and thrilling. It was like the first time you ride a broom and you ride it as fast as possible, knowing that you may fall, or crash and get hurt, but it doesn't matter because it feels amazing. Playing the game without rules was just as amazing, even thought I knew I could crash against him.

You see, when you are in the middle of a Quidditch match you get lost in the rush of the game. You forget about everything else and the adrenaline takes advantage of you. It's dangerous, but it also makes you feel alive. That was my case with George, each time he crossed my door I forgot about what was real and focused on what was happening. It seemed very clear and simple, but it was just a matter of time before we crashed into one another.

I had known George forever, just like I had known Fred. We shared our passion towards Quidditch, among other things, but I never thought we could spend that much amount of time together and still find so many new things about each other. I mean, it is true that George is the intrinsic twin, but that doesn't mean he is a quiet person, he just keeps more things to himself, something that gives him a twisted mystery, and makes him genuinely attractive.

He spoke of Fred with me a lot, mostly because Fred was in all of his stories. He didn't show the need to stay silent, he was honest about him. But he never talked about how he felt without him. Sometimes, it even seemed like Fred was still alive.

It was impossible to not notice that with each week he spent more time with me. We always met after work and sometimes he left the shop to Ron and went straight to my flat, and without noticing we went from casual gatherings to a relationship.

And the thing with him was that it felt so easy to understand him, and words were often unnecessary. He always greeted me in the same way: when I opened the door he walked in silently and kissed me, sometimes softly, others intensely, gently or passionate...it really depended on his mood. A smile usually followed the process, and that was more effective than a _Hello_. I got used to that way of greeting rather quickly, and somehow spoiled by it, if I may confess.

You see, one of the best things about us was that words weren't a barrier. Yes, we could talk for hours but we were perfectly capable of understanding each other without talking at all. You could say we had...our ways of understanding. That's why I became so fond of his form of greeting me, because I could tell everything through our daily first kiss.

But there were times when little words did the trick as well, especially if they came out spontaneously. Like the time George arrived my flat disturbed about Percy's noisiness.

"All afternoon!" He said, gesturing with his hands. "All afternoon! He kept asking me questions! He was all _Where were you yesterday? You came home really late! I saw you sneaking in your room!_ All afternoon he kept asking me the same questions! I was going out of my mind!"

"And what did you tell him?"

"Well, all bloody afternoon I kept answering the same things. I told him that it wasn't his business. But he kept insisting that if I've been seeing someone for so long, and it was serious, then there was nothing wrong with her meeting the family. But...what does he know?"

"Serious?" I said softly, but he didn't realize what he was saying.

"Yes. But do you know what I think?" I shook my head, but my thoughts were focusing on the word: serious. "I think he suspects it's somebody he knows, that's why he's so interested in finding out."

"So...what did you do?"

"Nothing," he shrugged. "Didn't say a word. He ended up getting mad at me and told me that for all he cared I could be in love with a dwarf." My mind stopped again at the word _love_. "But, he'll get over it. I told him that he could be sure the girl I love is way more gifted and beautiful than a dwarf." And there it was...that word again.

"Come again?"

"Oh! Wait, the dwarf thing came from _his_ mouth Angie..."

"Love?" I interrupted, in the middle of my trance. Because I never thought I'd hear that word so fast, not from him.

"Oh." He said realizing the significance of his own words. He smiled, and he wasn't surprised at all. He just smiled, looking at me as if I were the only one in the room that had been oblivious of that slight piece of information. As I saw him getting closer I felt his hands wrapping my waist. "Yes," he said rubbing the tip of his nose against my cheek. I laughed, realizing that the four letter word was making me speechless. I did say it back, in case you're wondering, and once again I agreed with him. I couldn't put the secrecy to an end, because it felt too perfect to damage making it a public matter.

And I still don't know how he managed to avoid his brothers' many questions. Especially Percy's, who had an eye on him and definitely suspected something. After several months, nobody found out that we were seeing each other. I had convinced myself it was best that way but deep down I knew we were just delaying reality and that, eventually, reality would strike us.

But of all my worries, the one that haunted me most was confronting George's deepest thoughts. I knew that if people found out about us, they would judge immediately, especially our friends. But I couldn't care less what people thought, my real fear was George's own judgment. I feared George felt guilty, I feared he was afraid of Fred's judgment.

...

My biggest fears were soon to be confirmed. The month of May got closer, and with that the anniversary of Fred's death. As the date got closer I noticed a drastic change in George's humour. He became awfully quiet and he was depressed all the time. Whenever I asked what was wrong he didn't answer and I didn't want to pressure him, because I knew the reason to his behaviour.

And just like that reality begun to strike us.

We started to fight over small things. Most of the fights were encouraged by him and since I'm not one with an easy temper the fights became bigger and bigger. He wasn't going to my place as often and when he was there he used excuses to leave. The fear of losing him for good was haunting me. The game was falling apart, and my team was losing. There wasn't anything left to do but watch the storm settling upon us.

I had no idea of how to handle him, and since nobody knew I had nobody to talk to about it. I began to feel frustrated. Some days I knew nothing about him, I knew he had slipped away already.

My temper cracked when he disappeared for a whole weekend. Weekends had been our things, the time when we got to see each other the most. He left my place on Thursday in a hurry, he said he would see me the next day. He didn't appear. I went to the shop on Saturday and he wasn't there, just Ron. I made some lame excuse for being there and Ron said George had been acting all weird for months. That information didn't really help. I sent him an owl, but got no response. Sunday night came and went, but still nothing. I was losing my mind.

He appeared on Monday night at my door. He was leaning against the door when I opened it, so he practically fell on me. I knew right away he'd spent the weekend pub hunting.

"Are you drunk?"

"No! Why?"

"_Why? Why_? George, where have you been?"

"Around..."

"Around? What's that supposed to mean? I was worried! You just disappeared all weekend! I even went to the shop! I wrote to you!" I felt like an idiot.

"Calm down, will you? As you can see I'm alive, so drop it."

I had to breathe all the clean air that was left in the room to calm down. I wanted to shout at him or throw him out of the house. But one side of me felt awful for him. I lowered my voice as much as I could.

"George...what's wrong with you?"

"Nothing, I didn't want to work this weekend. I went to a few pubs, what's so wrong about that? Besides, if you were so desperate to see me you could have gone to the Burrow. I live there you know." I was in no mood for sarcasm.

"George, nobody knows about us, how was I supposed to go to the Burrow just like that?"

"Screw everybody."

"George what's the matter with you? Really, you've been weird for weeks now."

"Weird? I'm not being weird. I have news for you: this is me." Hi took his hands to his chest, to make his point come across, but his tone was harder than his words.

"No it isn't George."

"What do you know?"

"I know enough."

"Oh, really? Then I don't have to waste my explanations, do I?"

I was standing on a border line.

"George, look at you, you're drunk, and you've been drinking alone again."

"I think I'm big enough to do as I please." After that I snapped.

"Stop it! This isn't you!" I screamed.

"Yes it is! Don't you get it? This is me! This is exactly what's left!" he screamed even higher. "Merlin Angelina, of all people I thought _you_ would understand!"

"I do! Or at least I'm trying! And I understand you're hurting yourself! Look at you! Look at what you're doing to yourself! I thought you had passed that." That was a lie. I never really thought he had passed it, I just wished he'd get better with time.

"It's easy for you to say that, isn't it? It's easy to just intrude one day in my life making me pretend that everything is okay because we're together. Well, it's not okay! It's never okay. It will never be okay!"

His words were the last straw. I couldn't take it anymore. I had never felt so impotent in my life.

"Stop it, George! How am I supposed to understand anything if you won't talk to me anymore?"

"There's nothing to talk about!"

"Yes there is! You're walking backwards George, you were fine a month ago and now...well, you're back in the rabbit hole!" I have no idea why I said that, but that was exactly where he was; in a black, small hole, too deep to see the light of day.

He walked up to me, for a moment I was afraid he was going to start yelling again. But he stood as close as possible to me, his eyes steady upon mine, his face filled with anger. I could have sworn he was challenging me. He lowered his voice, it was somehow frightening.

"Maybe I never came out."

"George, all I know is that this isn't what Fred would have wanted for you." The aggressive expression of his face got worst with my last words, I had crossed the line.

"Don't you dare put Fred in the middle of this, don't you dare...What do you know about him?" He said raising his voice again, in a very challenging way. "Nobody knows anything about him!"

He stormed out. The bang of the door was more than enough to make his point clear. I knew what I had helped unleash. I should have known better. I was angry at George but I was angrier at myself for making everything more difficult. I knew he couldn't handle the pressure, he couldn't handle the guilt I produced in him. I didn't blame him for that.

When you're in the middle of a Quidditch match you have many things to concentrate on. Not falling off your broom is a basic skill, but a very important one. Avoiding the Bludgers is probably the most important thing, but a Chaser, for example, has to focus on his real objective: scoring points with the Quaffle. If you lose that then you lose everything. If you lose your objective, you'll probably get hit by a Bludger, and you'll fall off the broom.

I lost everything, I lost the main objective, and I lost my real purpose for playing the game. I crashed against George, I was falling off the broom and it was a long way down.

I didn't sleep at all that night. I couldn't stop thinking that from the very beginning it had been risky, but I had played along. I fooled myself because the last months had been too amazing to stop.

But I knew what I had to do.

The next day I left the flat very early. I went to the place I knew he'd be in. When I got to the graveyard I walked slowly towards him. I admit I was panicking.

I felt I was walking into a private conversation. I could tell he spent the night there. He looked tired. He knew I was there but he didn't look straight at me.

I wanted to shout, to scream at him, for being so quiet and so intrinsic now, when he had never been before, not with me at least.

He seemed absent, and I wanted to scream at him my frustration because I, too, was frustrated and confused and torn inside, but I wasn't allowed to scream or reprise, because it hadn't been my brother the one that had gotten killed, it hadn't been my half, my twin, it hadn't been my soul the one that had been broken.

I was standing in the middle of a storm, and I wasn't allowed to complain, because it would have been selfish. It was blurry and grey and unpromising, but I wasn't allowed to show my fears because it wouldn't have been fair for him. I simply knew I was fighting a pointless battle.

The young girl inside me would have shouted out loud her feelings, letting him know I had those too, and I was suffering as well. The mature girl, though, was able to control those impulses better, even if they still claimed to break free.

"I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't be here, but I knew this is where I'd find you."

"That's okay." his eyes were staring without seeing, his voice was dry, almost unrecognizable. "It's going to be a year now." I nodded, to myself really, he wasn't looking at me.

We stood still for the longest while. Oddly enough I didn't feel uncomfortable, he didn't seem uncomfortable either. We both stared at Fred's tombstone, as if it was the last chance we had to see it properly.

"I'm sorry about before, about the things I said—"

"Leave it George, you don't have to do this. That's not why am here." He didn't listen to me.

"—and about these past weeks. I really am. I didn't mean any of it. You're not intruding. You're... the only person I really wanted to be with all this time."

That didn't sound like it was enough.

"But?" I asked.

"I can't—" he started

"...I know."

"Not now."

"I'm not asking when. I don't want to be lied to."

"It's not fair. I can't just get on with my life like that...I can't do it...not with you."

Cold, sharp needles would have pierced less than those last words. But they were true, and it would have been a crime to get angry at him. He raised his eyes for a moment. I would have preferred it if he didn't.

"I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing."

"I can't just move on like that. It's not fair."

Of course it wasn't. None of all that was fair.

Again, I wanted to scream my mind out, but I didn't. It was better to retrieve quietly. I walked up to him and kissed his cheek. I hesitated on being more up forward, but I came to my senses. I felt the emptiness of his skin, I didn't even know that was possible. I walked back and looked at the carved stone. I had known Fred too, and George was forgetting that.

"You'll have to do it, sooner or later. The moving on part, I mean."

He looked at me. I wasn't going to be silent about a truth he needed to hear. It was, after all, for his sake.

"You should move out of the house. You can't live at The Burrow forever, none of you can... I know the three of you think you have good reasons, but you don't anymore. Percy may feel he owes a lot to the family, Ron doesn't want to leave your mum alone and neither do you. But...in the end, you are all just hiding, from having to move on alone...just like we did these past months." He opened his mouth but I didn't let him talk. "And for heaven's sake, stop drinking that much alone. You have a family to support you...and people who love you, no matter what you think."

I could tell that last took him by surprise, but he didn't answer, he just looked at me.

"I'm always around, if you ever need to talk." I turned around and walked away. I wasn't expecting him to call my name or to run after me. He didn't do any of those things, of course. He let me leave and I didn't want to acknowledge how much I resented that.

It was all very real.

--

I would be lying if I said that getting through the next months was a piece of cake. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Sometimes I hesitated, I encouraged myself to go look for him, talk to him, make sure he was okay. I wanted to tell myself that he would be okay if he was with me, supporting him. But I always ended up understanding that I would just mess his life again. I helped him a lot more by staying away.

I encouraged Lee to spend more time with him, to let him know he was there. He took my advice and knowing that made me feel a little better.

Months went by and I felt better, but sometimes I wished none of that had happened, I wished I could be his friend again. I saw him a couple of times but I always tried to avoid him, although I couldn't avoid the flipping of my stomach.

With time Lee told me he was better, he moved out of The Burrow and back to the flat above the shop. A couple of months later Ron moved with him. He wasn't drinking anymore and he was getting on with his life well enough.

So, I decided to get on with my life as well. Quidditch was my priority. I was determined to be great at it, especially since I had failed at something else. I made it through the year fine. I saw George occasionally, but we never got passed smiles and winks. Each time I saw him I felt that familiar rush I get when flying, but I even learned to live with that feeling.

We met again, a year later, and neither of us said much, but that day he hugged me for the first time in a year, and I didn't pull away. We hugged until we remembered we had to pull apart. I didn't need for him to speak to know that he was doing a lot better.

--

If someone asked me what happened during the next four years I wouldn't have very much to tell them. The only thing I could say is that I played enough Quidditch for a lifetime. I can't complain at all. I can't say much about the relationships, though. There were certain guys now and then, but nothing survived more than four months, and to be honest I didn't really care.

I saw George from time to time, but I never allowed myself to be enticed by his company. I always tried to get away as fast as possible, it was...the smartest thing to do.

But one day I received a letter, or what's more, an invitation. Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley were getting married.

I knew going to that wedding might be a step backwards but...girls don't learn, do we? Besides, it was Harry and Ginny's wedding. I played a lot of Quidditch with Ginny professionally after school, so we get alone just fine. When I found enough reasons to back up myself I decided to go.

I regretted my decision as soon as I got to the wedding. I saw him faster than I expected. He looked...amazing. His hair looked great, his smile looked great, he was great all over. He kept smiling at everybody and seemed to be enjoying himself immensely.

He saw me pretty fast too and we didn't stop looking at each other from the distance. Our eyes met every five minutes. I tried to distract myself talking to some old friends but even when I was with people I hadn't seen in a long time I kept turning my eyes at him. And he was doing the same.

He chose the smartest moment to approach me for the first time; I was alone and saw him coming from the distance. When he stood beside me he wore a smile too great to resist, that same smile he used to wear frequently when he was younger.

"You came alone..."were his first words. I knew him well enough, and I knew what he was trying to do.

"I did." He smiled spontaneously.

"That's kind of sad."

I couldn't help but laughing. I really wasn't expecting that last. "You're such an idiot, George."

He laughed as well. One of the magical things about us is that we knew how to translate our own lines._"That's kind of sad" _means: _"I want to be with you the rest of the night",_ and "_you're such an idiot"_ means _"I'm still crazy about you."_

"You're here alone too," I pointed out.

"Yeah, I didn't say I wasn't a bit sad myself."

"We're two sad people."

"Dance with me?" He asked out of nowhere. That was it for me. I was walking right into it again.

"Whatever."

We went to the middle of the floor together and took possession of it. At first we talked a lot, danced a lot, and mostly laughed a lot. It felt like an innocent beginning but in the corner of my mind was the memory of everything that had happened before, and when a set of slow songs came we had run out of things to distract ourselves from each other.

As he held me tight I detected the familiar rush growing inside my chest. After remaining silent for a while he encouraged the first words, as always.

"Would it be too inappropriate to tell you that you look amazing?"

"Yes, it would be."

"Good, because you really do." If he wanted to be inappropriate I had a couple of things in my mind that would do justice to the word. But I tried to stop imagining things and focused on behaving well at his little sister's wedding. He was making it too hard, though, and with each song he held me tighter, his arms were wrapping me and his head was resting against my hair.

I spotted Percy giving us a weird look, and he wasn't the only one. I even caught Hermione Granger's eye more than once.

"George..."

"Yeah?" His voice was soft.

"People aren't that stupid. They're looking at us."

He raised his eyes and scanned the place. "Oh, yeah, they are."

"Maybe we better stop."

"Let's get out of here," he whispered into my ear.

"What?" I stopped dancing. "George! What— it's your sister's wedding."

"It's already late, and she'll manage without me." His eyes were exposed, he really was hoping I said yes.

I could have gone, I could have gone with him, I could have done the only thing I wanted to do.

"George..."

"Yeah...?"

"I have to leave."

--

I regretted enormously leaving him on the dance floor alone. I walked away so fast I didn't even hear what he tried to tell me. I thought that, at that point, it would have been stupid to fall again. What I wasn't realizing was that if after five years I still felt that wild rush through my body, then I had done a lousy job at moving on.

And the truth is...you can't avoid what's coming straight at you. Because, even when you fall off the broom, and hit ground really hard, you'll always want to get up to ride again. A real Quidditch player can never avoid the rush, the excitement of playing.

I tried to avoid everything I felt, and I know he tried to avoid me at first. But it was a matter of time before one of us did something about it. And only a month went by before he appeared in my front door. When I opened and saw him I realized I had been waiting for him to show up.

"Butterbeer?" He asked holding a bag of bottles in his hand.

"I'm sorry, but I'm never drinking with you again," I said plainly, with such nature that it seemed like we were friends again.

"That's why I brought Butterbeer, it's harmless."

"Alright. But you're not going in here," I closed the door behind me and walked a few steps towards him. "I know a place."

"Don't trust me, do you?" but he didn't seem insulted, he wore a mischievous grin on his face, a very familiar one. I hated the fact that it made my skin rise.

We walked to the park next to my flat, where we settled on a bench. The night was only beginning and the weather was starting to cool down. He opened a bottle and handed it to me, repeating the action for him.

"So, how's your family?" a question born from the necessity of avoiding the silence. "Everybody looked pretty happy at the wedding."

"Yeah, they're Fine. Audrey...I mean, Percy's wife is having their first kid soon."

"Oh yeah, I met her at the wedding. Nice girl."

"Yeah, isn't it weird?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, nothing. Charlie and I had a long talk with her before she married Percy, we tried to warn her, but she didn't come through. Oh well, we did what we could."

"Shut up. You're too mean to Percy sometimes," I said laughing.

"Oh, and Fleur went into labour a few days ago, another girl."

"Really? How do you like that, no boys so far..."

"Mum says Audrey is sure to have a boy. Oh, and while we are on the news section: Ron and Hermione got engaged."

"You Weasleys are getting busy."

"A bit." He smiled before taking the bottle to his mouth again. He seemed unsteady or nervous maybe. He did a great job at acting cool, but I knew him better than that.

"What about you?" I dared to ask.

"What about me?" He knew exactly what I was asking.

"Aren't you getting busy?" My tone came out carelessly, but I really was dying to know.

He took the bottle to his lips once more, but grinned at me, and after a second he shrugged his shoulders. "Not really, no. Girls seem to think as me as...unattainable...and that's a direct quote." We burst into laughter at the same time.

"My God, George, what kind of girls have you been dating?" I asked, quite judgmental, trying to restrain my mocking laughter, although I kept remembering that in the last four years I had been called _unattainable _by more than one guy as well. It must be a catchy word, I guess.

"Apparently very corny ones." He said, laughing with me. But our laughter died in a matter of seconds, and the silence that our situation provoked arrived faster than expected…we ran out of small talk fast.

"What happened?" He asked abruptly.

"With what?"

"You know...with us. Sometimes it seems unreal."

"That's because we fell apart so suddenly. Maybe it all happened too fast in the first place..."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That maybe I really was intruding...maybe it wasn't the best time for us."

"You can put it that way if you want...but I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you". I searched for his eyes, and he looked back. He was being serious. "And from the way I see it I let you go too soon..." He took the bottle to his mouth and parted his eyes from mine.

"It doesn't matter anymore, George. Besides, it wouldn't have worked anyway," I said quickly, trying to make my lousy argument believable.

"What—? Why not? We were pretty hot together."

"Shut up!" I hit him on the arm, his smirk was sharp.

"Why? We really were!"

"I can't believe you! And here I was thinking you were being serious." He hesitated before speaking again.

"I was being serious. Another butterbeer?" I shrugged my shoulders, I was beginning to feel it was going nowhere. "So, according to you...it doesn't matter anymore, does it?" I knew what he was attempting with that question.

"Well...there are a million reasons why we shouldn't be together," I answered, pretending to be wise about it.

"And those are..?"

"Well...it's us. Your family wouldn't understand, my parents wouldn't understand, and you will always ask yourself if Fred would understand".

"That was only three reasons."

"I'm serious, George..."

"So am I. And you didn't answer the question." I hated when he played smart.

"Alright, do you want the truth? I couldn't care less if they understand or not. It's you what worries me. It always was, and I was right the first time."

He fell silent for what seemed like the longest time. After a while he finally gathered what he needed to talk.

"It was going to be a year of Fred's death."

"I know. It all went too fast."

"Let me talk," he interrupted me firmly. "It was going to be just one year, I didn't know how...how to live without him. I was getting through one day at a time. I wasn't doing a very good job at it but I made everybody believe I was better every day. And then you came in. It all happened so fast and..." he hesitated.

For a moment I thought that was the end of the conversation but to my surprise he went on. "Do you want the truth?" I nodded. "I was happy. I never thought I'd be that happy so fast. For Merlin's sake I never thought I'd be happy again at all! In less than a year I was learning to live without him. I was happy...with _his_ ex-girlfriend...and _he_...was dead." I had no words for that. He managed to make me feel guiltier than ever. "...I thought we were betraying him."

"I know." My voice broke for a moment; I had to give myself a couple of seconds to recover my breath. "George, you have to know that Fred and I never were a real couple. I don't think we made it through the month. I think we found the tournament and all the things that were going on more interesting than each other."

"I know that." Of course he did, Fred and George told each other everything. "Anyway...I'm not talking about you and Fred dating a couple of times at Hogwarts."

"What?" I stopped. He concentrated his eyes on the label of his bottle of Butterbeer.

"The problem was...that It was just...us...Fred wasn't in the picture anymore. There was no room for him, I was shutting him out...for good. Before he died It had been just him and me...girls came and went. That's why I thought we were betraying him. I was...doing well without him. That's why I changed so much so suddenly, I didn't want to go on without him. I didn't want to leave him behind."

"I...I always thought you felt guilty because it was me, particularly."

"Well, it certainly didn't help. It made me feel worst. But I know how things really went between you two. Fred told me you didn't hit off as 'expected', whatever that means."

I laughed and he smiled back at me. That certainly sounded like a comment Fred would make. George didn't stop there.

"I remember telling Fred he was a jerk for not even trying it out with you." That, I didn't know.

"Really? You told him that?"

"Yeah, I said the least he could do was give it a real shot. I mean, it was you after all. But look who's the real jerk now. I had my shot, and well...you know the rest."

We became silent again. There he was: George Weasley out in the open. I had never heard him talk like that in my life. I knew this was one rare moment.

"I miss him," he said. Right from his insides he said what I already knew but had never heard from his lips before.

His hand was resting on his knee. I slid my hand over his, caressing his skin as lightly as possible. Unlike me he didn't hesitate, he turned his hand around and grabbed mine firmly, pressing our palms together, and chaining our fingers deeply. It was a perfect match. My neck and chest were burning, in a way that had nothing to do with butterbeer. He stared carefully at our hands together.

"Do you want another truth? I miss holding you," he said.

I smiled again. My impulse of kissing him was trying to take over, but my more "mature" self suggested me to keep it together, but when he raised his eyes straight at mine...I didn't last one more minute.

For once, I was the one to move first. My face leaned as close to his as possible. Our skin touched more than once and my lips brushed his. He smiled, three seconds later we were kissing, for the first time in almost five years, and if it wasn't the same then it was so much better.

"What makes you think it's going to work this time?" I couldn't stop myself from asking.

"You're kidding, right? What in the world makes you think it isn't? And leave out the three lame excuses you mentioned before...because, we are too damn good together."

I kissed him again, shamelessly, because it was true, we were too damn good together. We were back on the game. That's me, Angelina: the girl who intruded in George's life when she least expected it; the girl who isn't afraid of flying, or playing the game; the girl who couldn't find out how to get over that Weasley; the girl who deserves a chance with George...no matter what others might think.

Screw them...this is real.

_A/N:__ Review please!! If you're shy then a short note will do the trick. And feel free to make more character requests. Thanks for reading!_

_Next Witch: Lily Evans _


	6. Lily Evans

**Evident Temptations**

Gryffindor's common room was packed, mainly with seventh year students spread all over the couches, tables and floors attempting to study for their first round of exams of the year. At one of the nearest spots to the fireplace, two girls sat on the floor, surrounded by parchments and astronomy maps, attempting to finish an assignment that was due the next day, which they had avoided until the last minute.

"Lily," Erin whispered.

"Wait, I almost have this figured out," said Lily, who between all the astronomy books was trying to focus as hard as she could. Mary had left them an hour ago, claiming that it was a waste of time to be studying for something none of them understood very well to begin with. Astronomy had never been their best subject, and after hours of work they still had ten more constellations to figure out.

"No, look!" insisted Erin, who was setting her quill down.

"What?" She looked up impatiently. Erin was staring at the couch next to them, where James sat with Sirius. His hand held a small Transfiguration book and in his remaining hand he held his wand, pointing at a silver cup on the table. The cup changed every other second, at a very fast pace. Without having to say the spells out loud James made it turn into a parrot, a frog and a pigeon.

"Pretty cool, huh?" Said Erin, admiring his ability.

"He's showing off, Erin." She pretended to ignore them, but she startled when Peter, who was sitting on the floor by the table, burst into laughter. The cup had turned into a small pink rabbit.

"Oh, that's cute!" exclaimed Erin.

"It wasn't supposed to be pink." They heard James say, flicking his wand again and turning the rabbit into a hamster.

Lily went back to the parchment, finding it hard to concentrate, for she had lost her friend's interest in the assignment and James' little routine was gathering people's attention. Some people started to make animal requests. She tried her best to ignore him along with the fuss he was making, until a finger got in the way of her writing.

"That's not right. That planet only has two satellites," Remus had kneeled on the floor and was pointing at her parchment, with his free hand he held a pile of what Lily recognized as potions' books.

"What? Are you sure?" said lily looking at her questionable constellation. Remus nodded.

"And I don't think that galaxy exists," he said again. "And—"

"Alright, I get it. It's a mess." She took her hands to her face attempting to cover her frustration.

"Pretty much," he answered sympathetically.

"I can't believe I spent an hour on this."

"I won't take more time off you then, but I just came from the Library and Mrs. Pince says that you took the last copy of _Skills and Ornaments to the art of Potions_, I just wanted to know if you were done with it."

"Oh right, I have to return it…"

"Mind if I take a look at it first?"

"Sure." She leaned towards her bag and pulled out the copy.

"Thanks," he received the book and took a deep breath before attempting to stand up. His face revealed a frustration very similar to Lily's, and for a moment she remembered that Potions had never been his best class, on the other hand Astronomy hadn't been a problem for him…

"I reckon you're not done with the guidelines to get a mature healing potion?"

"Not even close."

"Aren't your friends going to help you with that?" she pointed at James and his company, who seemed to be having a great time teaching the cup/parrot to speak.

"I don't think so," he shook his head. "I don't think they remember we have potions tomorrow." Lily looked at the clock on the wall, it was almost midnight, and she was already fighting the temptation of sleep.

Remus was walking towards his three friends when she made a drastic decision.

"Hey Remus!"

He turned his head. "Yes?"

"I can trade you my Potions' list for your Astronomy map," she offered through a very clever voice.

"Done," he said without hesitation.

Once she finished copying Remus' map while he did the same with her list, and after answering more than one of his questions, she picked her things to head for her dorm. She couldn't avoid glancing at James one more time, because the last minutes had been quieter and the crowd was dispersing. But James' eyes were already on her, so she was forced to look away quickly. She hated when that happened, she desperately hated when he caught her glancing at him.

--

Astronomy turned out to be a great success the next morning. Her map, along with Remus', was very precise according to the professor. Taking the Astronomy load off her back raised Lily's humour by mid morning. In Potions, things went just as well. Lily's potion was turning into the exact shade of purple it was supposed to be, and of course Professor Slughorn did not waste time to use her work as a class example.

Out of curiosity she turned around to check on Remus. He seemed very pleased with his work, the substance of his cauldron was also turning purple. And as soon as Remus caught her eye, he murmured _'__thanks,'_ towards Lily. She smiled, but before turning she accidently caught James' eyes, whose attention was already fixed on her, leaving his potion completely unattended.

Through a dense cloud the substance of his cauldron exploded, causing Professor Slughorn to run towards James' table to examine the potion closely.

"Mr. Potter, you didn't stir the potion counter-clockwise, did you? And this type of healing potion doesn't include seaweed in its list of ingredients," he said, his nose wrinkling as he leaned in to smell the potion. "You clearly need some improvement," he concluded firmly before moving on to another table.

James face was filled with more disgust than disappointment. He didn't stop coughing for the next minutes, and that was because he had to slap Sirius behind the head to get him to stop laughing. Along with the rest of the classroom, Lily didn't restrain her laughter either.

After regaining the order of the class Slughorn ordered the students to put samples of their results on his desk, he proceeded to write the indications of the following week's research on the board and when the class was dismissed James was forced to stay behind to clean his mess.

"Miss Evans!" called Slughorn, stopping Lily from crossing the door. Erin and Mary left ahead of her announcing they would wait for her at the Great Hall. The classroom was already empty, except for Slughorn and James, who had been forced to stay until his table returned to its regular colour.

"Miss Evans…" said Slughorn in a parental voice. "Would you be kind enough to help Mr. Potter with next week's assignment?"

"What? Professor…I—"

"I am sure you will find it rather easy, and the poor man needs a serious gifted hand to help him out."

"But—"

"Mr. Potter!" He called James, who was pretending to be putting his instruments away instead of listening to the conversation. "Miss Evans will be kind enough to help you with the assignment. I expect to see serious improvement."

"Thanks Professor," replied James through a very pleased smile. Out of mere impotence Lily avoided his look and scrammed out of the classroom as fast as she could.

"Lily!" He called, catching up to her.

"What now?" She already was in a terrible mood, her entire day had been ruined by Slughorn's idea.

"Looks like we'll be spending a little more time together, that's all."

"Listen James," she snapped, "If you think yourself as clever as to take advantage of this to—"

"Hey, I'm not taking advantage of anything. I just wanted to know when we were—"

"We're not."

"We're not?"

"No," she stated plainly, her arms crossed and her eyes firm.

"You can't avoid Slughorn's orders!"

"Watch me." She turned around as to leave, but before even moving she felt the touch of James' hand on her shoulder. When she turned back again she gave him an eye powerful enough to hex him. Cleverly enough he removed his hand from her.

"Listen Lily…" He begun, quite serious. "I sort of need the extra help with Potions…you know… with the NEWTS coming this year…"

She was surprised to hear James admitting that he needed the extra help with something at all. Of course, her mind couldn't help assuming that his interest was a mere excuse to be alone with her.

"Why don't you ask your friends for help?"

"Which one? Sirius? He couldn't care less. Worm—I mean Peter? I don't think he knows what Potions are…or maybe Remus? Who has never been good at the subject no matter how hard he tries... and yes, I know you lend him your work, or he wouldn't have gotten that healing potion that well."

"Too bad James…" She turned to leave again but James got ahead of her, blocking her way.

"Lily...I do need your help with this." He stared at her firmly, and he wasn't smirking, his face was plain, but according to Lily he seemed too serious. "Please?" He said again, in a very soft voice, possible to hear just for her. Lily rolled her eyes, unable to understand why she was about to agree to James' request.

"I'd only be doing this because I respect Professor Slughorn…" She replied quickly, with a very hard face.

"I know."

"And no funny business, or I swear—"

"No funny business," he stated, very firm himself.

"In the common room, Thursday night."

"Wait, I have an extra Quidditch practice this Thursday night."

"No, you don't…we have potions."

--

Lily hadn't bothered to look at the clock in a long while, she knew it was late; the common room was deserted, except for her and her new studying partner.

"James, for heaven's sake, you're not even concentrating, the time of stirring varies according to the colour of the weeds you use to brew. If you stir for five minutes with brown weeds you'll end up with an explosion."

They had been researching together for a while now, and Lily was surprised to see that James hadn't tried to make a move on her. The situation was perfect, they were alone in the common room, the lights were low, and the place was perfectly quiet. The conditions might have been qualified as idealistic, but James wasn't taking advantage at all. What surprised her even more was to see that she was actually trying to help him. She couldn't complain much about him, because although he wasn't putting much effort on the research he wasn't getting in her way either.

Slughorn had assigned them to figure out the proper ingredients and indications to brew long term memory potions, and they were also supposed to write a paper about their proper forms of employment. The assignment wasn't easy, for the guidelines weren't all in one textbook, and James wasn't being of much help.

"You know what? Screw it…I don't care, I'm going to sleep," he started to gather his books and parchments together; his face was a mirror of exhaustion.

"Wait, it's not that hard, I'm sure the guidelines are here somewhere."

She slid down from the couch and sat on the floor next to him, picked the book and started to search for information that could help them through the subject. James took off his glasses and set them on the floor, pressing the palm of his hands against his eyes.

"See…here's one tip: for brain related potions always include beech roots to give the potion a firm texture."

"Never mind, it's pointless. Can't we finish some other day?" he said between yawns.

"No way, we're getting this over as soon as possible. James, Potions is a lot easier than it seems. The hardest part is researching. But after that It's just about intuition and a little concentration," she said as she wrote on her parchment.

"Yeah well, intuition? Don't have that, and concentration? I don't think so either."

She rolled her eyes and shook her head in disparagement. "Well, at least you're honest."

"I bet it wasn't this hard to tutor Remus," he said a little low, his eyes staring into the fading flames of the fireplace.

"What?" She turned to him and frowned harshly. "Tutor Remus? Where did you get that?"

"You helped him out with the healing potion, and it wasn't the first time."

"So what if I did?"

"Oh, nothing. I just thought you hated all of us the same," he shrugged and looked down at the floor.

"First of all, you know that's not true. I reserve my hate just for you," a cynical smile escaped her lips.

"I'm flattered."

"And, second, I've never had a problem with Remus, he's okay." she shrugged her shoulders. It was the truth, she had shared some time with him when they were Prefects together, a couple of years back. And since then she had concluded that Lupin was far more mature and sensate than the other three. She also had come to figure out, with time, the reason for his weird monthly behaviour. And since it wasn't her secret to tell she never talked to anyone about it but she felt silently concerned for him. He was a nice person and she didn't have a problem with him at all, she never did.

Then again one of the few people she really had a problem with was James. But now even hating him was getting harder. Since the beginning of the year she had been forced to share her condition as a head student with James, and was obligated to spend more time with him. At first she was furious at the thought of having to work around him. But as days passed by her hostility had become hard to act on, since he really wasn't that bad to be around with. But that was one thing Lily would never admit.

She even started calling him by his first name as well. Being that much with him, the last name routine was getting ridiculous. And more than once she had to act politely around him too, because she couldn't be caught by teachers treating her fellow Head Boy rudely, it would be inappropriate. But small details like those were the ones that Lily hadn't noticed, just like she hadn't noticed that once again she was enjoying herself around him.

"Is he?" he asked in a sarcastic tone, raising his eyebrow.

"Yes. He is," she answered carelessly. James looked at the fire again, but his face showed clear disapproval. Lily glanced at him once and smiled widely, realizing that the subject was beginning to upset James more than it should have. And something, she didn't know what, made her react towards the situation.

"James…are you...jealous...of Remus?" James looked at her again, clearly not expecting the question.

"What? No!" he said, acting too abruptly.

"Oh my god, I don't believe it."

"What?"

"How can you be jealous of him? He's your friend he's not going to...make a move on a girl you… supposedly like."

"_Supposedly_?" He frowned.

"Yes."

"Why can't you just say that I like you? It's not like I've been hiding it, even the professors know it. Anyway, I know well that Remus isn't making a move..."

"Oh, so you think I'm the one making a move, then?" she raised both of her eyebrows.

"Never mind that, you were searching for the guidelines there," he said pointing at the book she was holding, but blushing slightly. Her grin grew wider; she didn't remember seeing James blush before. She turned to the book again, still smiling and couldn't help but handing out a last comment that concerned the conversation.

"For the record...I didn't help Remus, I just exchanged homework with him. It was a fair bargain." She didn't look at James again, and he didn't respond. But even without seeing him, she could sense his smile.

Lily never thought she would be able to stand more than a minute alone in the common room with him, at less than 2 feet of distance from each other. Both of them sitting on the floor, surrounded by open books and scratched parchments. When she looked up again James was both yawning and scratching his eyes, like a little boy past his bedtime. He was genuinely tired, but he wasn't complaining.

"You know…you wouldn't be having that much trouble with Potions if you did some research once in a while. If you find the right books and ask the right people you might get what you want, but for that you need a little dedication, that is if your _marry men_ give you the time..." she finished sarcastically.

"My what?" he asked, quite confused.

"Never mind, scratch that from your head."

"_Marry_ men? Why does that sound somehow...gay?" she couldn't help laughing to that last.

"Forget it, it's a Muggle thing."

"What Muggle thing?"

"A Muggle legend."

"Like a story?"

"Yes."

"With...gay, _married_ men in it?" she rolled her eyes but laughed again, noting that James actually seemed interested. He was far more interested in the tale than in studying potions.

"Well," she hesitated as she turned the pages of the books she was holding, pretending to be researching as she spoke. "It's about a hero and his group of men, whom where carelesspeople. Nobody was gay...I think."

"And?"

"Well, they stole from the rich and gave it to the poor, and they spent their days hidden in Sherwood forest, making the life of the nasty monarchists impossible, and playing pranks on those who dared to walk near their hiding place."

"Sounds cool. So…I guess I remind you of him."

"Who?"

"The hero!"

"What? How did you reach _that_ conclusion?"

"If the guys are my marry men, then that makes me the hero, doesn't it?" He arched his brow, and Lily couldn't help but seeing a flash of a little kid in his eyes again, at the thought of being the hero of something. He looked genuine, and somehow naive.

"I guess so...and now that I think of it, he _did _wear tight clothes and he _was _surrounded by many men...so that _does_ sound a bit gay."

"Thanks a lot." She laughed again, and he smiled, staring at her laughing like she had caught him doing many times before. There was a slight moment of silence, in which Lily sustained her smiled and her eyes on his, until she realized what she was doing and looked down fast.

"You suck at telling stories," he said immediately.

"Excuse me?" she looked at him again.

"Yeah, what more is there? Didn't the hero have…a lady?" A smirk got caught in his last words.

"Sure. But that's not the point right now. Let's get back to potions."

"You can't start a tale without finishing it," he replied.

"Maybe later, James. Now: Potions," she pointed at the book. "Write these ingredients down, they'll help with any healing potion you brew in the future, that is…if you ever brew any.

James searched for one of his parchments, and Lily couldn't help but noticing what was written at the edge.

"Prongs." she read out loud. "You know…all four of you have the weirdest nicknames. I've heard you. Why do they call you Prongs?"

"Well...it's too long a story..."

"About?"

"Maybe later, Lily. Now: Potions." He smirked, and she resisted the urge to press him further. She looked down at the book, trying to regain the lost concentration. She hadn't noticed that their random chat had been going on longer than she would have expected and getting back to studying seemed not only hard, but very unpleasant.

"Anyway, why is it that you need good grades in potions? You never seemed to care before." He looked at her in disbelief. Lily realized he was surprised because she had never shown interest in him.

"Well, I'll be applying to be an Auror when we get out of Hogwarts," he explained simply. She raised her eyebrow. "I know what you're thinking," he said immediately.

"What I'm I thinking?"

"That I don't have what it takes. That is, after all, what you generally think of me."

"No...I wasn't thinking that. You'll probably do just fine," she said sincerely.

"Whoa, is that a compliment Lily Evans? Where did _that_ come from?" He said, emphasizing his amazement.

"Shut up." She looked down at the book again. He remained silent and she wasn't sure if he was concentrating on the page with her or simply looking at her.

She leaned forward to force her eyes to concentrate on the written pages, but the process was unexplainably impossible. She noticed every move that he made and she couldn't avoid noticing the moment her long hair fell all over her shoulders, covering the side of her face, and developing a curtain between her and James. She pretended she didn't notice but a few seconds later she felt his fingers gathering her locks and moving them gently to the other side of her neck. The feeling of his fingertips running through her hair was as new as it was enticing, and as the skin of his hand brushed her neck smoothly she felt a shiver through her back. He retrieved his hand slowly and she didn't dare to look at him. Instead she tried to concentrate on reading properly, but the new thought that conquered her mind was the realization of how close to her James was. Just then she acknowledged that they were sitting together in the floor, leaning closely towards the same book, none of them really paying any attention to it. His breathing was slow, calm, soothing. And it wasn't long before she admitted to herself that she was not reading at all, she was just focusing her eyes on random letters to avoid the effect his presence was beginning to have on her.

"Found them?" He asked quietly.

"No, I guess they must be in another book." She said turning to face him for the first time. When she did so her eyes met his too intensely to ignore. They stared at each other for a few seconds. She didn't recall ever seeing him without his glasses before, not that closely at least. His eyes were a very light shade of brown, almost chamomile, and there was something naïve about his sight, something she had noticed more than once that night. He looked so different now that she saw him closely. The fire behind them was almost dead, mirroring the remaining light of the common room. His face was partly hidden in the shadow her head produced, giving the expression of his face a weird but very seductive mood.

"You…" she tried to mumble something.

"What?" He asked, leaning closer to hear her, frowning slightly.

"You look different."

He did not say anything to that random statement. Instead he remained silent, and a little astonished, for the situation was nothing like the usual encounters between him and Lily. And before she could understand the incoherence of her last words she had urged herself to lean closer, and he leaned as well, closer…and a little bit closer…

…until being closer was completely impossible. Her lips were the ones to give in first, and her eyes were the first ones to close as well. His skin brushed hers, wondering the territory. She let him lead the kiss, because she was in a strange trance that was a result of her discovering what that weird temptation was all about. He breathed deeply before reassuring his position with one hand on her face, firmly, exploring her, trying to find the perfect way to please both of them. It wasn't long before they found the perfect way to tilt their heads, and move their mouths without making mistakes, and without breaking the connection that had been waiting to be released.

But just when their lips were moving in perfect unison, transforming their mouths into a perfect match and making it impossible to breathe properly, Lily remembered she was in the common room, studying Potions…with James Potter.

She snapped from the trance that had enveloped her and after opening her eyes pushed her companion away.

"James!" she screamed. He didn't say anything; he seemed too surprised to talk. "I can't believe you did this!"

"What?" He said, breaking the trance himself, though he still seemed to be finding it hard to focus.

"_What?_ This! I can't believe you tricked me into this! How low can you get?" She stood up, gathering her things, filled with indignation.

"What—trick you? I didn't trick you! I didn't do anything!"

"You didn't do anything? You kissed me!"

"Wait a minute!" he said, regaining his senses. "I didn't kiss you! _We_ kissed! It's completely different!"

"What—James! This is low…even for you! I can't believe I trusted you!"

"Trusted me? Lily, what's your problem?" He was frowning, beginning to lose his patience, but Lily was too furious to notice. "I didn't do anything! Let it go!"

"What? Let it go? I'll tell you why I won't let it go, Potter." He reacted to the hardness of her way of pronouncing his last name. Her face was red, infuriated. "I'll tell you why, and it's the same reason I won't go out with you: you're too arrogant James, that's why. You think you can always get what you want no matter what, and that's why you do things like this!"

"Lily—"

"We're done here." She picked her things and ran up the stairs, leaving James in his same sitting position, confused.

That night when she told Erin about it, still red with anger, pacing around the floor of her dorm, her friend immediately pointed out that Lily was overreacting. Lily, of course, couldn't believe this accusation. But things got worse when Mary, who had been overhearing from her bed, interrupted the conversation saying that to her it sounded like it had been Lily the one that had incited the kiss to begin with.

That night Lily strongly wished she had smarter friends.

But her act of indignation only lasted one night. And the next day her walk by the lake with Erin was interrupted by the one person she really didn't want to see.

"Evans!" said James, catching up to her.

"Evans?" she repeated, enraged. He had not called her by her last name for months, maybe more than a year.

"A word, please." His voice was distant, and very serious.

"What? No! Not right now James."

"Right now."

"Um…I'll just…go." Erin escaped as fast as possible.

"What do you want?"

He paced in front of her for a while before gaining enough breath to speak. "You know Evans, you can be arrogant too sometimes."

"Excuse me?"

"Yes, _and_ you can be stubborn! Hell...you really are stubborn," he said frenetically.

"Listen James—"

"—And do you want to know why? You're stubborn because once you convince yourself of something you won't let it go, will you? You just stick to it and you don't let _anyone_ convince you otherwise!"

"James—"

"And you're arrogant because once you think you're right you won't admit if you fail, you won't admit if you misjudge, you won't admit that maybe, just maybe, something you thought about someone was wrong."

"You're not making any sense!"

"No, I'm making a lot of sense." He bit his lip for a moment before continuing, she had never seen him look so exhilarated. "There were _two_ people involved in that kiss and _you_ were enjoying it as much as I was!" He gestured strongly with his hands, emphasizing on his anxiety.

"James!"

"No, _I'm_ doing the talking now. You can't just get involved in it and then go: 'Oh right, I hate James, let me ruin the moment, blame it all on him and yell at him once again!'"

"Shut up James!"

"No! Do you have any idea, do you have the slightest idea of all I've done these years to catch a least a little of your attention?"

"What?"

"Yes, you know what I'm talking about."

"No, James, because you haven't been trying to catch my attention, you have been trying to catch _everybody's_ attention! You're not happy unless someone's looking at you."

"That's not it, and you know it!" He pointed at her in a very strict way. "You know everything has been about you."

"About me? James all you did these past years was behave like a...like an idiot!"

"Yes, I did behave like an idiot and yes, it took me a while to notice but why can't you even admit that most of it was because of you. What's even worse is that I've changed a lot of things about myself and you're still too stubborn to see that!"

"I'm not stubborn!"

"Yes you are!" He insisted, their voices were competing to be as loud as possible.

"Do you really think I'm going to stand here and listen to all this?"

"Well, somebody has to tell you about it!"

"James!"

"And do you know what's worst?" He paused for a moment, as if he was trying to decided if he should continue. "That no matter how wrong you are, no matter how insufferably stubborn you can get, no matter how judgemental you can be with me I—I still want to be with you! I mean, how stupid am I?" He took his hands to his hair for a quick moment, and grabbed it tightly. "But can't you for one second, can't you for one small minute consider me? No! Because you're too busy hating me! You know Lily Evans, I can agree with you on one thing: I really am an idiot."

"James I—" She was left without a good argument to defend herself. For the first time it seemed to her that what James was asking for was a lot simpler than she had thought. She looked at him, he was panting, still furious; reminding her of the same attitude she had had the previous night. "I don't…" she tried to say something weakly, but nothing came out.

"Forget it Lily…apparently it is too bloody hard."

And just as he left, angrier than she had ever seen him, Lily was left standing alone, digesting every single one of his words.

--

That night she was the last one in her dorm to fall asleep, James had hit too close to home for her to ignore, and after stirring herself between the covers, she decided out of nowhere that she had to get James on good terms with her again, and if there was something right about his words was that Lily Evans really was quite stubborn, and now, she wasn't going to stop until she accomplished it.

She tried to catch him after class more than once but he always left before her, rushed to get lost in the crowd of people. During their meals she tried to catch his gaze, hoping that a second of eye contact would be enough to make him understand that she needed to talk to him, but that didn't work either. James didn't look at her once.

"James," she said, sitting by him on an empty chair at the common room table, taking advantage of the fact that he was alone, which rarely happened. But he didn't look at her. "James...listen I—" Before she could even consider beginning the sentence James stood up from his chair in a firm move, grabbed his bag and exited the room through the fat lady's portrait.

That exact way of treatment remained for the following days. And just then, she feared for a moment that maybe James wasn't ever going to surpass his anger.

"This is an interesting switch," mused Erin in a suspicious voice, one night as they were getting ready to go to bed. "Are you the one stalking him now? James must be one hell of a kisser…" That last comment earned Erin a pillow thrown at her head, but Lily didn't answer. She merely shut the curtains of her bed, to make sure her friend didn't say a thing more, and to make sure no one noticed how badly she was blushing.

And it was her same amount of stubbornness that didn't let her give up. No matter how bad her friends teased her, she was determined to get a chance to talk to James, preferably alone. But that afternoon it wasn't James the one she encountered, but in her need to solve the problem she thought it was even better.

"Remus!" He stopped at the call of his name. Once she greeted him she didn't try to hide the reason she had called him. "Seen James?"

"He has Quidditch practice today."

"Oh right..." She waited for a moment to see if Remus let something slip voluntarily but, of course, he didn't. "Um...I assume he told you...everything?"

He tilted his head while shrugging his shoulders, in a way that exclaimed that the answer was too obvious to pronounce.

"He's pretty mad..." she admitted.

"Yes, you could say he's mad. I would say it's a bit more than that."

"Listen, I've been trying to apologize for days! But he won't even look at me."

"Apologize? Is that what you think he wants? An apology?"

"And what else does he want? Never mind, don't answer that." She corrected herself as she saw Remus' right eyebrow arching highly.

"Lily..." He said looking at both sides and lowering his voice, making her approach him a step to hear him better.

"Don't you think he has a good reason to be as mad as he is?"

"Well...I—it was one kiss! And I know I reacted poorly but..."

"But?"

"But...Oh I don't know..."

He looked at her, waiting for her to come up with a good explanation. Just then Lily realized she was trying to come up with a worthy explanation herself. James' lousy behaviour over the past years had always been a perfect excuse for her to hate him, but suddenly it wasn't anymore. She had never gotten herself to admit anything good about him and know she had more than one thing to point out. Worse, she was agreeing with him for once. She really was stubborn and a bit arrogant when it came to judging James, and although Lily had never considered herself a judgmental sort of person, she certainly had developed unbreakable judgments towards him particularly. She let herself be blinded by them, making it impossible to see the best things about him, and the aspects of his personality that had undoubtedly matured over the last years. And although, he conserved his natural, mischievous personality, everybody had seen changes in him, but Lily hadn't been able to admit them.

"I really don't know..." She said again, feeling somehow overruled.

"Lily, do you really think that to James that was _just_ a kiss? After all the years he's been after you?"

She took a while to answer, but she did eventually. "No…" She mumbled, feeling again, unable to back herself.

"You know...If it were me, I would have stopped hitting on you the same day you hexed him on the hallway. Remember? Last year? You knocked him unconscious. He spent a week in the Hospital Wing."

"He deserved it! He sabotaged me while I was on a date with Alan Reckwol!"

"I'm not saying he didn't deserve it, of course he did, I said so to him myself! I'm just saying I would have stopped...but _he_ didn't."

Lily's stare travelled through the floor. "Remus I..." He looked at both sides again, probably to make sure none of his friends were coming.

"When he got out he asked if you had wondered how he was doing."

"I did," she said sadly, "I asked Madam Pomfrey…everyday for him," she looked down to her feet. There was a moment of silence, a moment in which Lily thought the conversation had reached its end.

"Lily...he spent these last years trying to get you to like him..."

"I—"

"And…from the way I see things…you've been spending the last two years trying to get him to think that you don't like him back." She looked up, and a little smirk escaped Remus' mouth.

"He's at Quidditch practice," he said as he put the pile of books he had been holding into his backpack. "That's all I know." He smiled at her, and she let herself smile back, before watching him turn around and leave.

--

James was the last to exit the field. She hesitated as she saw him approach alone, clearly tired, his face covered in dust. He frowned when he noticed her, but kept walking slowly, his eyes fixing on her even though his face wasn't welcoming her presence. She despaired, and walked towards him to shorten the process, until he stopped still, and silent. For the first time in days he was going to let her talk. As she walked to reach him she thought of the many things she could say to snap him out of his anger towards her. Maybe apologizing was not enough, but she had to think of something before standing in front of him with nothing good enough to say.

And that was when words seemed useless to Lily. Once she reached him she grabbed his face with both hands, ignoring the look he wore due to the previous hours of practice, and searched for his lips instinctively, looking for the same feeling the previous kiss had brought her.

He didn't react much at first but it wasn't long before he released his broomstick and embraced her instead, holding her tight enough to make sure she didn't pull away this second time. As a matter of fact, it was a grip strong enough to make sure she didn't let go ever, maybe to make sure she didn't regain her sanity, because according to his and everyone's knowledge, Lily Evans would never kiss James Potter at the exit of the Quidditch field.

And that connection that had been violated the first time their lips met, was born once again, and it wasn't long before they felt perfectly comfortable with each other's lips, each other's touch and especially each other's grip.

And later it was her who parted their lips, because he was far too wrapped in the process.

"Alright. I give up," she said in case her actions weren't being clear enough. He took a while to answer, a small smile was beginning to show in his disbelieving face.

"Fair enough," he said, those two words came out roughly, almost refusing to leave his throat.

"Hogsmade? Next weekend?" she asked through a whisper.

He nodded but didn't verbally answer, and it wasn't really necessary, his face was more than expressive. She turned and walked away, leaving James either clarified or even more confused; she didn't know, but she would have time to find out.

_A/N: I'd love to hear your thoughts on this! So please, do remember to leave a comment. _


	7. Cho Chang

_A/N:__ First of all, to the people who have been reviewing this story: gigantic thanks!! You guys cheer up my monotonous days (honestly). _

_I know, I know...nobody likes Ch__o... but hey, I had a bunny hoping in my head. This character was requested, and although I was already working on it, the request made me speed it up, so thanks for giving me the push! _

_As additional information, __I listened to Wreck of the day by Anna Nalick about a thousand times when I wrote this._

**Wreckful**** Fate**

"Come on…"

"No."

"Just one…" His voice was soft, sweet, and a little manipulative. The tip of his nose rubbed her forehead warmly. He was much taller than her, even when he leaned.

"No..." She was mumbling her words, like a little girl, and she was fighting the unreasonable need to cry, making it impossible for her to speak properly.

"Please?" He smiled, sweetly, but she wasn't looking at his smile. It was too tempting, so she looked at the floor instead. "Cho…" He grabbed her chin gently with his fingers but she lowered her face. Her eyes wandered to the floor, avoiding him. "Cho, you're beginning to worry me." His smile faded as he said this last, but his words were still soft and patient, just like him.

She raised her eyes again, and looked at him.

"Just go, you'll be late," she said, refusing to smile, not even a little.

"I'm not going until you kiss me. Come on…for luck?" He raised her chin again, and directly searched for her lips, but she moved her mouth away, in a subtle yet strict move. He looked startled by her action and she immediately hated herself for developing that look on his face. But she was upset and she couldn't stop demonstrating it. He, on the other hand, had been pretending he didn't notice.

"Cho... It's just a game," said his tone of voice. His eyes, though, spoke differently. Cho knew he didn't believe his own words. She knew him better than that.

"It's not just a game," she said firmly, and a little annoyed.

"All right, maybe not. But I got this far, didn't I? We all did. Stop worrying." His words were quite serious this time.

And the fact was that Cho knew what he was about to walk into. He knew, the professors knew, everybody knew. The Triwizard Tournament wasn't just some game, and the first task alone had been more than enough to prove it. As a spectator she had been scared to death through the entire task, and at times she didn't even look at the arena. But it was a secret to everyone that the person she had been most afraid for wasn't her present boyfriend.

But fate is a funny thing…

Because the guy that asked her to the Yule Ball first wasn't who she had been anticipating, she even felt thrown off, because she didn't know that he fancied her to begin with. She agreed to go with him, partly because she didn't want to end up going alone for waiting for someone who might not even ask. But also because his way of asking had been too charming to simply refuse.

She had bumped into him on her way to Arithmancy one morning. He didn't take Arithmancy, so he had no business in that wing of the castle. But she didn't notice that detail, her mind had been fixed on other things that day.

She bumped into him again a few days later after dinner. He asked her something random, something related with the time, or the weather, she couldn't remember now. She only remembered answering politely and after a few seconds she was the one that kept on walking, leaving him behind.

The third time she encountered him by accident, she was running down the stairs after exiting her common room. A bit more than distracted she collided against him when turning around the corner. Her bag fell to the floor, spreading freely her parchments and books. He kneeled down to gather them and she smiled gratefully when he returned her things. She was already in a hurry to get to Charms, so she didn't notice when he tried to say something as she left, just like she didn't notice that a Hufflepuff had no reason for being at the Ravenclaw Tower that early in the morning, unless he had a very specific purpose...

That night, when she reached the comfort of her common room again, she looked in her bag for the parchments that held an essay she had been working on for Defence Against the Dark Arts and noticed that they weren't anywhere. She didn't find them that night, they weren't in the common room, or in her bag, or in her dorm.

She despaired the next morning, because the assignment was due for the next day and she had been working her head off for the last week on it. But when she was exiting the Great Hall after breakfast, giving into the idea of having to rewrite the entire thing, she bumped into him, once again. He said he had been looking for her, and handed her the pile of parchments that she'd worried about the entire night. He claimed that she left in such a hurry he didn't have time to hand them back.

That night, when she gave the essay one last look, just to make sure everything was in order, she noticed by the end of the first parchment a handwriting that wasn't hers. Between Charms number five and six to repel Stunning Spells she found a few words, written in very light -easy to erase- ink, that formed a simple sentence.

_For some reason you mak__e it hard to say it in person…_

That was all. Her curiosity made her look into the other parchments, to find the rest of the writing. She found it in the third piece.

…_so I'll try this way instead…_

She smiled, a little shocked, and quite intrigued. She looked for another one of her parchments just to confirm what she was already suspecting. She found a sentence by the end of the entire essay, next to her signature.

_...__Will you go to the Yule Ball with me? _

Nothing more. No name was taking credit for the request, but she knew to whom it belonged. She surprised herself chuckling alone, realising that he had tried more than once to talk to her or maybe even ask her the question, but in her distraction she hadn't let him.

She closed the parchment, and after a few moments of introspective she realized how daring he had been. What he did had been risky, and more to her than him. She could have handed that essay in without looking over it, and she would have experienced the most embarrassing day of her life if Professor Moody read that insinuating request. But then, she thought, that maybe he knew her more than that. Maybe he already knew that she wouldn't hand in an essay without checking it first.

She didn't wait much longer to react to his request. She couldn't just leave him hanging for days, it would have been very mean, and that night she admitted to herself that she had to stop waiting for Harry to ask, because apparently, he wasn't going to...

The next morning she went down for breakfast very early. A few people were already there, and he was one of them, sitting at the Hufflepuff table. She walked up to him and once she stood closely enough she handed him a small piece of parchment.

"You left this when you gave me back my things yesterday," he received it suspiciously, and she walked away -submerged in embarrassment- before he could open it. Once she sat down on her table she looked back at him, he was already opening the parchment, which read the simplest word of all.

_Yes_

He looked up and his eyes met hers from the distance as a shy smile grew across her face.

And that was all it took to change the course of her following weeks. Only days before the Yule Ball Harry had approached her and had finally asked what she thought he would be asking earlier. With more than regret in her voice she turned him down, but it didn't take her much time to figure out that things had turned out for the very best.

Because fate is a funny thing, and nobody can tell where it will them lead to, it simply drags them along.

Cho learned that last bit the pleasant way. One day she had been shooting girlish glances at a fourth year Gryffindor and a few weeks later she was holding a seventh year Hufflepuff's firm, steady hand as she walked down the corridors with him; running her fingers through his hair, just for the pleasure of touching him, of returning the tenderness he showed every time he pressed his lips against the corner of her mouth.

Spending slow afternoons by a lonely edge of the lake with his head resting on top of her legs was enough for Cho to think that things happen in life for a very good reason, and everything goes the way it should. Of course, people will love fate as long as it takes them through a path they happen to enjoy, or maybe even love.

It was funny, no, hilarious, that she had never noticed how much he fancied her. He told her about the countless times he had tried to ask her out before the Ball, but she was always running late, or busy, and more than once she unconsciously left him standing in the middle of the hallway with the words already out his mouth. She apologized a thousand times for being so distracted –she never confessed to him that the reason she hadn't noticed his interest in her was because she was busy trying to catch somebody else's attention- and he teased her about it enough times to make her face go red. He admitted that it didn't really matter, because her indifference encouraged him to keep on trying, and he didn't regret a minute of it.

But, of course, things weren't always that perfect. As the second task approached she couldn't avoid feeling frightened for him. It was in Cho's nature to grow obsessive about certain things. And as the days came closer her fear for him increased, and she developed a very unstable, nervous behaviour. He tried to calm her worries but it never worked. If the first task had been filled with temperamental dragons, then she really didn't want to imagine what was waiting for him at the second task.

The night before the task arrived faster than she would have liked. What's more, that last week was over so fast she couldn't even savour it. She left him early, so he could rest properly, and once she got to her common room she threw herself on the couch in front of the fireplace. She rested her head against one of the cushions, and wished she could fall sleep until the minute after the task was over. She didn't want to see him walk into it, like she had seen him walk towards the dragon. It was a heroic picture, sure, but it was pure torture, and Cho wasn't a masochist. She wished she could simply close her eyes and open them in front of him, with the entire thing over.

Her thoughts and wishes must have been heard, and that night Cho felt foolishly lucky, because she was called in the common room by Professor Flitwick, led towards the Headmaster's office and without any previous preparation she, along with three other people, was explained about her important part in the task.

Throughout Dumbledore's entire explanation the hesitation and nervous glances between her and the other three were endless. The petit beautiful girl sitting next to her looked at Dumbledore with wide opened eyes. Cho glanced at Hermione Granger more than once, who was listening at the headmaster so intently she might as well have been writing it all down. Ron Weasley frowned deeply, almost not believing that any of what was going to happen was possible. Actually, she couldn't believe it either, and after Dumbledore was done explaining, a very disconcerted silence followed. Hermione asked a couple of questions that concerned the process, but the expression of her face was really wondering whether the champions were going to be alright, and that was the only thing Cho wanted to know as well. But that was the only thing no one dared to ask.

After the little girl was set to sleep first, thanks to Dumbledore's arduous spell, she was the second to be hexed. Dumbledore caught her with his powerful gaze, and her eyes were captured immediately. Cho's mind submerged into a tranquil blankness she had never experienced before. She did not dream, or think during the time of her sleep. No thought crossed her mind. It felt hallow, peaceful, and somehow perfect.

The next thing Cho saw when her eyes opened was a ray of light coming from above. The light got clearer as she was being pulled up by a firm arm, which's strength she recognized immediately. Everything else was confusing, but she knew who was swimming next to her. She felt her face rising from the water, while his grip was tight on her. She turned and saw his face. Cheers came from above, but she didn't look at them. She didn't ask if he was first or last either. She just smiled, as he smiled back, because it was all over.

And now, the day of the third task had arrived faster, if possible, than the day of the second task. Her worries were out once more, and now worse than ever, because she couldn't avoid the fear, the uncertainty of what could happen to him. She was in a worse state than she had been the previous time. She wasn't cut out for things like these, she thought. She was almost mad at him for being one of the Triwizard champions. That's why she wouldn't look at him, let alone kiss him.

"Cho..." he said again, settling his hands on her hips. "Are you really going to let me go...like this?" he was the worried one now, his eyes were as concerned as hers, although for a different reason.

But of course she wasn't going to let him leave like that. He should know her more than that by now, she thought. She met with reason and reached for him, for his lips, to be more precise. And as she finally let her lips give into the motion of his mouth, she tried to force her mind to go blank. She tried not to think, she tried to capture the hallowed, yet peaceful feeling the spell had given her. She searched desperately for serenity, but they were both filled with too many emotions to find serenity between them any time soon, especially that day.

Once she had given into him she was the one who wouldn't let go first. But when he separated them he smiled widely and she had no other choice than to smile back.

"You'll find a spot in the front row? So I can see you when I come out?" he asked, rather hopeful.

"I will," she agreed.

He kissed the corner of her mouth softly before walking away. She saw him leaving, filled with all the security she was lacking at the time. It was cold. For some reason it was a freezing, cold evening. She wrapped her arms tightly with her hands. It was going to be a cold night as well, she could tell. She didn't move, not one inch, she stood silently as she saw his figure disappearing in the distance.

A minute passed by and Cho didn't move at all.

Five minutes passed by and she turned her head back, looking up at the castle, hesitating, deciding if she should hide herself in her dorm, the common room, or maybe the Library. She could hide until it was all over, so she could stop obsessing with what was going to happen. She knew she would stop worrying when it was all finally over.

Another minute passed.

She looked forward again. People walking from different directions were gathering in the same place, cheering, laughing, some with their faces painted. Green scarves, heavy fur coats, and silk uniforms were all heading for the altered Quidditch pitch.

She walked forward, towards the crowd. She walked fast, so that she could get there before she changed her mind.

Fate is a funny thing...Cho already knew that, she didn't need that day's brutal reminder.

_A/N: Feedback, please!! And special thanks to my beta for putting up with it!_

_Next chapter: Victorie Weasley. _


	8. Victoire Weasley

_A/N: I highly doubt that Teddy and Victoire were best friends before getting involved, but I do beleive they were pretty close...in a way. Anyway, please read and find out!_

**Convenient realizations**

Victoire sat still on the ground. Her hands hugged both of her legs tightly as she tried to block the way for the cold breeze that was freezing her skin. Her long hair tangled around her neck as the wind blew harder.

In spite of the cold weather, her bare toes clenched the grass, and her shoes sat lonely beside her, forgotten about an hour ago. There was something comforting about being barefoot on the grass, or the sand, or the wet earth after rain drenched it. Not that her mother ever encouraged her to be barefooted anywhere, but she couldn't help it. And every time she felt anxious or nervous, nothing felt more refreshing than her fingers pressed against the wild grass.

The sun had set a while ago, and she had no idea for how long she had been sitting on that grass, staring at the pitch. She heard distant voices coming from the field, some cheering the players, others reprehending them, she knew the reprehending voices belonged to Warren, the reason she was so anxious now. She had been waiting on the grass for who knows how long for the Ravenclaw Quidditch captain to conclude the practice and see if at least this time she'd finally have a moment to talk to him, and tell him exactly what she needed to say.

For the last weeks it had been impossible for her to talk to him properly. It was ridiculous, they had been going out for the last five months and now she couldn't get five minutes from him, not even to break up. There wasn't much left from their relationship -if that was the proper name for it now-. It was pending from a threat, and somebody had to break it already, and Victoire had decided to do it herself.

Victoire was aware that her mind and her boyfriend's were in very different places. The school year had them busy enough with the OWLS approaching, and Warren was taking his new Quidditch captain title quite seriously. But above all the excuses, the only truth was that neither of them cared much about spending time with the other anymore. But while Warren chose to ignore the situation spending additional time with his friends, Victoire was determined to put an end to the pointless cycle.

They had agreed to study together tonight but she preferred to wait for him after practice, because the anxiety was killing her, and she really needed to get things over with.

Victoire looked up, and contemplated the round, polished full moon that took over the sky. Its light was so clear and perfect, she could see almost everything from the distance. She glanced at the pitch again, determined to talk to Warren even if it meant she had to sit there all night waiting for him to get out of Quidditch practice.

But then she saw something that instantly caught her attention. A figure, like a shadow, moved in the distance. She recognized the shadow within seconds; it was Teddy, sneaking towards the Whomping Willow. He got so close that she was sure it would hit him, but strangely enough it didn't.

Victoire frowned and leaned towards the scene to get a better look. Levitating a long wooden stick he touched the bark, making it freeze. Teddy bent down and walked into it. Victoire jumped off her spot, she couldn't believe her own eyes. Nobody had ever gotten that close to the willow, let alone tried to enter it. She got up fast and instinctively ran towards the tree. She left the pitch behind, along with Warren and of course, her pair of shoes. Once she reached the old tree its effect had worn out but she quickly found the stick lying on the floor. She copied Teddy's moves and when the willow was still again she took a deep breath and dared to enter the tree.

Jus as she walked into a corridor, she remembered that her feet were naked. The wood underneath them was dusty and uneven, but she didn't care to go back. She quickly gave into the new place, and without hesitating much she walked forward slowly, listening to the sounds that seemed to form part of the walls. As she walked through, she became convinced that the place was haunted, or at least alive, because more than once she felt the walls moving slightly, and shrieking noises came from far away, sometimes she thought it was from the wood of the floor. She thought then, that maybe it was just the Whomping Willow trying to scare her away.

Eventually, the walk through the corridor ended, and Victoire found herself crossing through a doorway and entering what seemed to be an old, abandoned bedroom. She stood still and looked at the slim man who was lying on the bed in front of her, his stare absent on the ceiling. For a second or two she simply looked at him, shocked.

"Teddy?" her voice managed to say softly. He turned around in a fast move, and sat on the bed startled.

"Victoire? What are you doing here?" he frowned. She looked straight at his hair, which had been brown for several days now. She hated seeing it that shade, for she was the one who always celebrated the variety of colours that often conquered his head. For the last few days, every time she asked him about it he said nothing was wrong, and of course she never believed him.

"Me? I'm following you! What are _you_ doing here?"

"Why were you following me?" He asked, frowning harder.

"Well…I mean…I saw you walking into the willow and well...it's not a very common thing to see."

"Oh…" his expression relaxed as he looked down. "Did anybody see you come in?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes! I checked!"

"Good." He rested his head on the bed again and parted his eyes from hers. His sight returned to its absent trance.

She walked around the room, contemplating every inch of it. The wallpaper was so old that she couldn't make out its original pattern; it was grey now, and ragged. Her fingers touched the paper, trying to identify its original colour. The furniture around her was in a terrible condition and even the wood was torn. Whatever had lived there either wasn't human or had a very temperamental pet.

"Where are we?" she asked after a moment.

"The Shrieking Shack," he answered plainly.

She turned around, her eyes wide with amazement. "What? You're joking." He shook his head, very serious. She walked up to the old and dusty bed, most of its wood was tattered too. She sat on it, beside the spot where he was lying, and looked at the ceiling trying to make out what it was he was looking at. They remained silent for a couple of minutes, and after a while of staring absently at the ceiling she turned her sight on Teddy, with his lack of expression and brownish hair.

"This is where he spent his full moon nights," he said softly.

Victoire looked at him, understanding the situation. "Oh...your father."

He nodded. "I don't think anybody in the school knows this is here. I don't think even the professors know."

"How do _you_ know, then?"

"I got it out from Uncle Harry when we were home last Christmas." He paused, and Victoire read a trace of bitterness on his face. "I can't believe he didn't tell me about this place before."

"Well..." she looked around the room again. "He had his reasons Teddy...I'm sure he did."

"He gave me this too." He handed her a photograph, yellow and broken in the edges. "I had seen it before but now he gave it to me." The picture held four young friends, around Teddy's age, smiling and waving at the camera. "That's him," he said pointing at one of the guys.

Victoire stared deeply into the eyes of the man in the picture, seemingly relaxed and calmed. She also couldn't avoid staring at the man next to Teddy's father, who had his arm over his shoulders. He looked extremely like her uncle, the black hair and round glasses developed a sharp resemblance.

"That's Uncle Harry's dad," he said when he caught her expression. "But he said I needed it more than he did."

"They all look...happy."

Teddy raised his eyes at her. "Do you think he was?" he asked sincerely, a little hopeful, but Victoire didn't have an answer for such a question. "Do you think he was happy? Having to hide himself every month? Having...to..."

"I don't know, Teddy," she said saddened. He looked down at the picture again, and she gazed around the room, even the paintings were ragged. And it was hard for her to imagine a man, locked in his loneliness, struggling with himself, going through that amount of pain, not being able to do anything about it but to live through the pain, and wait for it to pass. She looked at Remus Lupin, the young man in the picture, and wondered if Teddy was thinking the same thing, or if instead he was trying to find in the ceilings, the walls and the furniture of that place for something he could recognize as his father's.

"You know... it's hard to find someone who really knew him. It's hard to find someone who can tell me something other than: 'your father was a brave man' or 'your father was a very wise person."

"Well...Teddy, it's true."

"But..." He breathed deeply. "My Gran has all these stories about my mother, about her childhood...and I can't find anything about him..." he said, and Victoire knew he was restraining a painful look. "...no relatives, no pictures...and all his friends are... dead. It's like, the only thing I can get from the people who knew him are...small pieces." His hair was turning lighter and it was starting to match the colour of the man in the picture. Victoire's heart sunk, because during his childhood he used to match his colour with her uncle Harry's and sometimes he even turned it red, to match the rest of her family.

"Teddy...have you been coming here every night?"

He looked at her, but didn't answer. That was answer enough for Victoire. She moved and sat even closer to him, looking down straight into his eyes.

"Then that's why Uncle Harry didn't want you to know about this place sooner. He didn't want you to obsess with it."

"He said something like that, I think. But I'm not obsessing…this is the only thing I have left from him..."

"But...you have things to focus on, you have your N.E.W.T.s this year... you can't spend your nights here for the next months."

"You're overreacting."

"You know I'm not..." she looked at him firmly and he looked down immediately.

"Well...I—"

"—you have much more than an old tree left from him." He looked at her again, and suddenly her words seemed hard, but he let her continue her argument.

"Don't look at me like that. You really do..." she smiled. "My gran says you're just as brave as him, she says you're just as sensate, centred and well… just as stubborn," she finished. He smiled shyly to that last. "Besides…" she said hesitating, pleased to see that his mood was changing.

"Besides, what?"

"Besides... you make the cutest howling sounds," she said teasing sweetly. He opened his eyes widely, his cheeks turned into a different colour and it had nothing to do with metamorphosis.

"You didn't just say that," he said, covering his eyes with one hand, and smiling in embarrassment.

"But you do!" She insisted laughing, remembering that when Teddy was eight years old and was told that his father had been a werewolf he spent the following two weeks howling like a wolf, and got pretty good at it. Of course, he stopped it when he grew up. But now and then, he still couldn't help sneaking out of the castle sometimes with his friends to howl near the Quidditch pitch when there were people practicing at night, just for the pleasure of freaking them out.

He laughed at Victoire's comment, but his cheeks turned into a dark tone of pink. And suddenly, his hair decided to match the colour of his skin, and without Teddy's permission it turned into a light shade of pink. She knew what his pink hair meant: embarrassment. It rarely happened, because Teddy was awfully good at controlling his abilities. But now that it did she didn't want to waist the chance to tease him about it.

"Nice hair," she said smiling.

"What? Why?"

"It's pink!" she exclaimed, mussing his soft pink locks with both of her hands. It had been a while since she saw his hair in that particular shade. She loved it, mainly because it made Teddy even more embarrassed.

"Stop it Vic!" he laughed as he grabbed her hands to stop her. He shook his head and within seconds an electric blue colour grew all over it. She smiled, satisfied to see his hair of a bright colour again instead of brown.

"Don't call me Vic!" she said fighting his grip, which was pointless. "How many times do I have to tell you I hate it...sounds like a little boy."

He laughed, tightening his grasp. She realized then that he hadn't let go of her hands. His fist locked them tightly, and it wasn't long before her sight got caught on his. They froze in their positions and looked at each other silently for a couple of seconds, and Victoire acknowledged that in a pointless attempt to free her hands she had ended up stroking her thumb against his palm, which was both weird and uncommon for two people like Victoire and Teddy.

He cleared his throat, breaking the moment. He rose from his lying position, freed her hands, and left the bed. She was glad that her hair didn't turn pink when feeling embarrassed. The entire moment had been unusual, and Victoire wasn't sure if she was imagining things. One thing was certain: Teddy looked just as uncomfortable as her.

"Come on, it's late, let's get out of here," he said, avoiding her eyes.

"Late? Oh no! I was supposed to meet Warren!" She jumped off the bed and walked quickly to the door, where he was already standing. He looked down at her feet and smiled slightly. He wasn't surprised at the sight of her bare toes.

"Where did you leave your shoes this time?"

"Oh! Right! Um...I don't remember..."

"Come on..." he said gesturing with his head. "I'll help you look."

"Alright...but let's make it fast, I was supposed to study with Warren."

"Yeah...you don't want to be late for that," he said laughing sarcastically and stepping aside from the door to let her cross first. She rolled her eyes and walked by him, towards the hallway and out of the Shrieking Shack.

--

It was quite late when Victoire entered Ravenclaw's common room, where she found Warren sitting alone on a couch, he didn't look very pleased.

"Where were you? I looked for you everywhere!" he asked harshly.

"Sorry, I got caught up..." He frowned deeply as she took a seat next to him. He was waiting for her to answer, but she never said where she had been because there was something more important to talk about. She took a minute to begin her speech. She had been waiting for days to get a chance to talk to him, and now breaking up with him in the middle of the common room didn't seem like the best idea, but she didn't want to have to wait until the next day, and since their meetings had turned into very sporadic ones, she had no time to waste.

So she began explaining herself, and she explained how distanced they had grown the last month, and she explained that neither of them really didn't seem to care about each other anymore. She was simply stating the obvious, she was pointing out what she had noticed days ago, but as she spoke to make her point clear she realized that apparently Warren hadn't noticed all the things she had been noticing, because he wasn't expecting the breakup.

"You're breaking up with me?" he asked after a while, frowning. His tone was filled with indignation more than real shock.

She looked down. She couldn't believe he hadn't seen that coming. "Warren, you know this isn't working anymore, and I know you feel the same way."

He ran his hand through his hair, the same way he did every time he needed to feel a bit more secure about himself.

The people in the common room weren't being discreet about listening to their conversation. Victoire looked around, and after realizing how exposed they were to the ears of others she slid to sit closer to him.

"Warren, I'm sorry...but you know it's not working, it just—"

"—Are you cheating on me?" he asked abruptly, his face enraged. A girl behind them gasped.

"What?" she didn't pay attention to her high tone of voice. She wasn't expecting that accusation, and he had said it as if it was an obvious thing to think from her, as if it were the only reason a girl would break up with him in the first place. "How did you reach that conclusion?"

"Who is it?" he asked again, considerably upset.

"Warren, stop it!" she jumped from the couch, infuriated. "I'm not cheating on you!" she exclaimed, lowering her voice this time, because she was certain now that she and Warren were the centre of attention of the common room. Warren pressed his lips together. He nodded silently, and after looking down at the floor for a couple of seconds he took a moment to look up at her, trying to read her eyes.

"Alright," he said nodding, unconvinced. "But there's someone else, isn't there?"

"Oh my god Warren, no! There isn't anybody else."

"Oh really?" He stood up from the couch as well. "Then, where were you tonight?" he asked. "Who were you with?"

"Tonight? I was just...just with—" Teddy...just Teddy was going to be the answer, but his interruption didn't let her get to it.

"—And last week? I didn't see you until dinner...nobody knew were you where and you weren't with Evelyn! Victoire thought back in time. That day they didn't see each other until dinner, he was right. But when she arrived at the Great Hall and sat next to him he didn't ask her where she had been, he didn't even look up from his plate. He simply gave her the silent treatment, and since she hadn't been doing anything wrong she didn't push to find out why he was so upset.

By then their relationship had already gone downhill, and neither of them seemed to care enough to even fight. That day, Victoire had been more concerned about Teddy, because that was when she first saw his brownish hair, and his lost, sad eyes. She spent the afternoon with him, trying to cheer him up, oblivious then of the reason for his depression. They hung out together around the grounds, recalling how much time they used to spend together when they were kids. Because before they went to Hogwarts they were pretty much the only company the other one had –at least of their ages-. Once Teddy entered Hogwarts and Victoire was left behind, things changed considerably between them. They grew apart from each other, but the small bond that connected them never really broke.

That day had been like any other day; the only difference was that she spent it with Teddy...just Teddy.

"And how about the weekend before that? Do you think I don't remember that?" Warren asked again, surprising Victoire with his sudden good memory.

That Saturday Warren had planned an extra Quidditch practice with the team, so Victoire went to Hogsmeade with her friend Evelyn instead. But once they got there Evelyn ran into one of her crushes and practically dumped Victoire at the Three Broomsticks. Conveniently enough she ran into Teddy and spent the afternoon with him. They ran to Hogwarts when they realized the time, and Warren wasn't pleased to see her arrive so late at the Great Hall. But it hadn't been a big deal. She was with Teddy..._just_ Teddy…

Warren had stopped throwing accusations towards her direction, waiting for her to respond. But Victoire was silent. She was busy experiencing a rerun of her last weeks, and the awful lot of _Teddy...just Teddy_ that had been involved in her days; along with a lot of laughing, teasing, and fighting over whether or not he should call her _Vic,_ a nickname she hated but he insisted on using on her. But overall –like tonight- there were the occasional deep, personal conversations. He wouldn't talk about his father or his deepest frustrations with any random girl, not even with Clair, who was one of his best friends. He chose her instead, he always had chosen to talk to her when it came to his father. They were in different houses, different years, had different friends and different routines in Hogwarts; so they were certainly not best friends, but they weren't cousins either. They never treated each other as such, even though he was part of her family. It was weird that she didn't have a word for Teddy's place in her life. She didn't have something to call him by, but she knew there was a bond between them; something almost tacit, intangible, something she had taken for granted, something that for the last weeks had been leading her to feeling something else...

"Oh my god..." she said, faintly, as she took her hand to her thorax in an attempt to breathe better. She slowly sat again on the couch and Warren followed her moves. Her sight was vacant, she was staring at empty space, her mouth fell open.

"Well?" he asked, impatiently. But Victoire couldn't answer him. She wasn't capable of answering _just Teddy_ anymore.

"Oh my god..." she said again at the realization of Warren being right about at least one of his accusations. Sure, she wasn't cheating on him, but she might as well have been. She hadn't realized she had been flirting with somebody else subconsciously, and it wasn't _just_ anybody else.

"Victoire, will you talk already!" he stood up violently from the couch again. She would have paid to freeze the moment, because she couldn't handle both things at the same time. She couldn't handle her new, awkward, out of place discovery, and Warren's demanding but justified questions.

"I—"

"You know what? Forget it..." he said abruptly, before he picked his things and ran out the common room. Victoire sat alone for a moment, and after minutes her trance was interrupted by the loud whispering that was taking over the room.

--

Being the centre of attention was rarely a good thing at Hogwarts. Mainly, because it meant people were gossiping behind the centre of attention's back, and after only a day of having broken up with Warren through a very public display, Victoire decided she was tired of the eyes of the girls in her year being on her all the time and the whispering every time she entered a classroom. She had too many things in her head to have to put up with it.

As a result she skipped Charms and searched for a spot by the lake and as far from everybody as possible. She threw her shoes away from her and rested her back against a tree, where she stayed alone for a long while, far from being peaceful because she still had to deal with another series of thoughts flashing across her head.

She closed her eyes and forced herself to stop thinking, but she never stopped thinking at all. She didn't know exactly what she was feeling, she didn't know since when she felt it, she didn't know why it took her so long to figure it out, and most important: she didn't know if Teddy had noticed.

"Hey..." she heard before opening her eyes in a sudden move. Teddy was sitting beside her, both of her shoes in his hands. "You don't want to lose these again," he said as he put them down next to her, she smiled weakly.

"You alright?"

"I'm alright..." she shrugged.

"Right," he said plainly. The silence that followed was unnatural. She looked at him, and examined the wild black hair he chose to wear that day. It made him look much older, taller, and even stronger. "I heard you and Warren broke it off."

"What? already? That was only yesterday!"

"Are you joking? The news is all over the place. Alison Wildfield was reciting it during breakfast."

"But...she wasn't even there!" Alison was a girl in Victoire's year, but in Hufflepuff, Teddy's house. She was the daily prophet of the school and she happened to have a crush on Warren, which probably encouraged her to deliver the news as soon as they reached her. "This is embarrassing," said Victoire, covering her face with her hands.

"Hey, it happens," he said before welcoming a small silence. "So...I hear there's another bloke."

Victoire's eyes widened to the size of pancakes as she removed her hands from her face.

"What? Alison said that?" She wanted to drown herself in the lake. If Teddy asked her who that 'bloke' was -which was not very likely since Teddy never showed any interest towards Victoire's crushes before- she didn't know what she was going to answer. "What else did she say?" she asked trying to avoid being the subject of interrogation.

"Oh, nothing..." He lied, uncomfortable with the situation.

"Teddy, just say it," she demanded.

"She didn't say anything el—"

"Teddy!"

"Alright! She said something about you cheating on your boyfriend with some other bloke," he said plainly.

"WHAT? That's not true!"

"I know, that's what I told her. I said it was rubbish, that it didn't sound like you at all."

Victoire paused herself, and smiled after a moment. "Thanks."

"Hey, somebody had to shut her mouth. She ruins people's breakfast when she gossips like that so early."

"I think I need a place to hide myself in..."

"You're overreacting, in a few days Alison will forget all about you and will torture someone else. Although, if you ever need a place to hide...you could always use the Shrieking Shack."

Victoire laughed out loud. "Alright, I'll keep that in mind."

Teddy smiled coolly, but hesitated before talking again. "So..." he said shyly but pretending to be natural."I gather from your reaction, that you do fancy another bloke." Victoire froze for a couple of seconds, she thought she had been successful at avoiding the subject.

"Since when do you care about who I like?"

"Um... no...just asking. I thought I could since I'm letting you use my tree and all."

"_Your_ tree? When did the Whomping Willow become your tree?"

"Um... inheritance!" he said innocently. That was one thing about Teddy, he often came up with random conclusions. They laughed together for a couple of seconds, until they became silent again. In an effort to repel another uncomfortable moment, he cleared his throat.

"Anyway...I never thanked you properly..."

"Thanked me? For what?"

"For the other night...you were right. I might have been obsessing...a bit."

"Feeling better?" she asked.

"Hey...I'll be fine," he smiled, a smile that Victoire returned before he looked down nervously and stood up. It was weird, how their encounters were getting more and more uncomfortable by the minute, when being next to each other had been nothing but natural for them in all those years.

"I have to go. You seem to have...a lot on your mind."

"Right," she said looking up and staring at him, she wanted to find in his eyes something that told her if he knew or suspected something...or maybe felt it back...but not even Teddy's eyes were that transparent.

"See you around Vic," he said as he turned and walked away.

"Don't call me Vic!" she retorted, suddenly annoyed, because he still wasn't capable of taking seriously at least her request of quitting the nickname.

"Don't count on it!"

--

She didn't find an answer to all of her questions about Teddy that day by the lake, or that night, or the next day, or the following week for that matter. Instead, she was awfully confused because she certainly didn't know just how she was going to handle this now. Avoiding him wasn't going to work ever because she always saw him, not only at school, but at her family's houses as well. He was part of the meetings, family reunions, everything. And now... things were going to be completely different around him, and that idea was killing her. Easter break was only weeks away and she was sure she'd have to see more of Teddy during that week.

"Victoire Weasley!" said an unpleasant, awfully high voice. The Hufflepuff news station was standing in front of her, blocking her way.

"Alison..." she said plainly.

"How are things?" the hypocrisy of her voice was unbearable.

"Fantastic..."

"I'm sure!" she said smirking. "So? When are we going to know who the mystery man is?"

"What mystery man?"

"Don't play innocent. I hope you made a smart trade though...I mean, you wouldn't leave _Warren_ for some common loser, would you?"

"Shut up Alison, go bother somebody else..." with her shoulder she threw the girl out of the way.

"See you at Potions!" she heard Alison say under giggles, as if they were casual friends. Victoire walked fast, her head down, avoiding running into somebody else. But she wasn't that lucky.

"Victoire!" she was called. She rolled her eyes; she really didn't want to talk to anybody. This time it was Robert Randol, one of Teddy's closest friends. She stopped as he reached her, but she would have preferred to run away. "Seen Ted? I can't find him..."

"I don't know," she said abruptly. "Why should I know? I never know where Teddy is!"

"I'm just asking because—"

"Why do you have to assume I know where he is? I don't even care where he is right now..."

"Um...sure I just—" she resumed her fast paced walk and left Robert behind her, quite confused. She was going mad by now, she just knew it. She needed to be left alone. Why the hell did she have to find this right now?

She walked faster, losing herself to her thoughts. The only thing that would make her morning more complicated would be running into—

"Teddy!" she said breathless, after bumping against him on a corner. He smiled, awkwardly.

"Hey...Vic...can we talk for a sec—"

"—Would you drop the nickname already?" she snapped.

"I told you...It's not going to happen," he shrugged innocently.

"Well, it should because...I hate it! I never realized how much I hate it before," she said seriously. Her dramatic tone made him laugh, as it always did. Teddy always teased her about being a little over dramatic. But today, his laugh made her more upset, because she felt more helpless.

"Don't laugh! I'm serious!" she said, severely upset, before sighing in realization that Teddy was never going to take her seriously. "I'm such an idiot," she concluded.

"Vic...you're not an idiot."

"Yes I am! Because I hadn't realized—I—I never—how could I have missed it when it was so obvious?" she gestured strongly with her hand.

"What? Victoire...are we both talking about the same things?" he frowned, deep in confusion.

"How could I have not noticed before...?"

"Well...I've called you that since we were kids!" he explained.

"Exactly!"

"You're... not making any sense..."

"Well...it—I—" She was about to spit everything out but she restrained herself just in time. "—it sounds like a little boy's name!"

"That's rubbish!"

"It does! And I'm not a little boy. I'm not the kid you use to compete with... I'm not the little kid you used to push so I'd stop teasing you. I'm far from being that! I'm—"

"I know that!" he retorted loudly. Teddy almost never yelled, and that was the sign that made Victoire calm down, but she was still panting, breathing fast. "You think I don't know that?"

Teddy looked at her, his expression had changed, he wasn't laughing or smiling, he was as serious as her.

"Do you, Teddy? She questioned, and swallowed hard. Teddy walked up to her, and she didn't move, waiting for something to happen, anything. They were both unsteady, and Teddy breathed deeply before walking backwards, away from her.

"I have to go...I have..." he said as he walked. She nodded, turned and left before him.

She went straight to the library to return a late book and sat in one of its empty tables, and did nothing but stare blankly into space. She waited for it to be the exact time for her Potions class, for she didn't want to deal with anyone. When it was time, she headed for her classroom.

As she arrived there her eyes fell upon Teddy's green hair immediately. He was waiting for her a few feet away from the classroom.

"Don't you have a class to go to or something?" she asked, irritated.

"Sure...but let's talk first," he answered.

"I think we've done enough talking for today," she said annoyed. Teddy looked at her, as if she had just said something important that urged him on to something.

"You might be right..."

"What?" asked Victoire, half impatient to walk to Potions and half confused.

"Listen...I've been trying to figure you out for the last days, but... I need to see something..."

"What? Teddy, are you talking in code?" Now it was she the one who couldn't make out what Teddy was saying.

"Listen, this might be weird...or not... I don't know. The thing is...I've been wanting to—"

"—Teddy! I've got Potions now!"

"I need to see something..."

"Whatever it is that you want it can wait until after class, okay?

"No," he shook his head. He had a knack for choosing inconvenient moments, and Victoire was losing her patience again.

"Well, what is it? Make it quick." He breathed deeply, his chest grew a few inches, as if he was gaining courage to do the unthinkable.

With both of his hands he grabbed her face firmly. Her first reaction was to pull back but he didn't let her move. He leaned forward and in a very quick move, met her lips, his hands holding her face. Her second impulse was to grab his hands, but to make sure he didn't release her.

She kissed him back, not remembering that they were in the middle of a corridor, and that there were students walking by, in their way to Potions as well. She didn't hear the giggles or the shocked comments, she didn't hear a thing.

When they parted away he was smiling widely, his face filled with a mixture of excitement and awkwardness she hadn't seen before on him.

"I can't believe I just did that," was all he said, his eyebrows raised, he seemed as surprised as Victoire.

She wanted to tell him that she couldn't' believe it either, she wanted to tell him lots of things, but she didn't, instead she laughed softly.

"Your hair," she pointed out. She could hear girls giggling but she didn't care to see who they were.

"What?" he asked.

"It's pink..." she replied, caressing it with one hand.

"Oh, great...again?" He covered it with both hands. The giggles of the corridor increased and his hair turned into a shade of hot pink she had never seen before on him.

"I'm going to have to start wearing hats," he admitted as he transformed his hair into the same, bright shade of green he had before.

"You know...I'm late for Potions already. I guess... I'll have to skip it."

"Cool." He smiled shyly.

Victoire knew she'd be the news of the week again. She knew her classmates just as she knew Alison's powerful tongue more than well, but somehow, it didn't seem significant anymore. She had more important things to focus on right now.

--

_A/N: This was one fun chapter to write! It was much longer, believe me, I had to edit it a lot. Now I have enough material to start a long fic, which I will because writing Teddy and Victorie turned out to be a lot of fun. So...if you're interested, the first chapter will be up soon! _

_Oh! Right...remember to share your thoughts on this chapter! _


	9. Audrey Thombson

_A/N: I'm so sorry for the long __time!! I hope you can give this one a try. Audrey is obviously not on the books but she was mentioned by JK Rowling on her webpage, so I'm using her as cannon. I gave her the last name and everything that comes with it. My profile has information on her. _

**Inevitable things**

"Dad, please don't start it again."

"_Audrey, its just__ dinner. A couple of friends, their wives—"_

"—Their _sons,_" Audrey cut him off, her voice emphasizing with a hard tone as she pronounced the last word.

"_Well...yes, sure. But just—"_

"Sorry dad, not interested," she whispered patiently into the auricular of the mobile.

"_Audrey..."_ begged the deep, hard voice on the other side of the line. _"It's just a dinner party. It was Alexis' idea. She has been planning it for days, and I really want my only daughter to be there."_

Oh no, not the only daughter card.

"Dad..." she said, resting her head hard against the wall and closing her eyes as she felt a new uncomfortable dispute developing. "Dad, I'll go with two conditions."

His tense silence bothered her, but she continued.

"No setups. I don't want to meet any of your friend's sons, nephews or grandsons again. I don't care how many times they've been to Oxford in one lifetime. I'm still recovering from the guy who talked to his car."

"_You're overreacting."_

"Putting my foot down dad," she said dryly.

"_Alright. __I'll see what I can do about the setups."_

"And I don't want you to use your friends again to spend all night trying to convince me to join the company."

"_Audrey!"_ he said, exasperatedly, just as she had expected. _"I'm only thinking of you. I can't bear to see my only child living like that."_

"Dad I'm fine! I like how I live."

_"At least listen__ at what they have to say—" _

"—Dad!" She shut her eyes briefly and pressed her lips tight. "I can't do this right know...I have to work."

"_Work? You could be making a __career here…taking over after me. Instead, you're doing what? Working at a lousy shop as a common—" _

"—I happen to like the lousy shop. Listen dad, I really have to hang up, alright?"

"_Audrey!" _

"I'm sorry. But I'll still see you this weekend. I'll drop by."

_"Audrey...__" _

"Love you…"

Before she could hang up, the door to the closet she had been hiding in opened widely and the sudden excess of light stunned her grey eyes. Ron frowned, looking down at Audrey, who was sitting on the floor, beneath the many shelves of closed and opened boxes, with a mobile in her hands.

"Um--what are--Do you want to be left alone in the closet?" He asked awkwardly, acting as if he was interrupting a very private moment.

"No! That's alright. I'm all done," she said, crawling out of the place, fighting the embarrassment. She stood up in a hurry and fixed the wrinkles of her pants. "I just needed to take the call...privately." She had jumped inside the closet because it was the first place she found, since she was sure that her father's yelling could be heard through her side of the phone.

"Um--alright...Hey, that's like the latest model!" said Ron excited, pointing at Audrey's hand. She looked down at the expensive phone that had lately caused her so many problems, the latest model in the market, and an unnecessary gift from her father. She accepted it because he insisted he wanted to be able to stay in touch with her more frequently, which had seemed reasonable to her. _Stay in touch_, he didn't mention anything about nagging, persisting and criticizing her way of living.

"Oh, yes..."

"Can I see it?"

"Here, have it...ignore it if it rings," she handed the phone to Ron and headed for her place at the counter, her mind still caught up in the fight she held with her father minutes ago.

It was almost impossible to talk to her father sometimes, especially when he didn't let her talk at all. She had been living out of the house for almost a year and there wasn't a day that her father didn't remind her of the huge mistake she was making.

He couldn't conceive that her only daughter lived in a tiny flat in London and worked in a shop, surrounded by unexplainably dangerous explosives.

But Audrey was as patient as her years of life had permitted her to be. Being the only daughter of a rich but lonely muggle, she had to deal with the disapproving eye of his father when it came to her magical differences. Since the day she received her letter, she had been thrown onto the border line of two worlds: the magical world that fascinated her from the beginning and the muggle world where her beloved yet temperamental father belonged.

She sighed strongly. "It's almost impossible sometimes..." she whispered to herself.

"I know," answered Ron, she hadn't noticed that he was still standing by her, handling the phone. "Hermione has one of these, not as fancy...and certainly not as complicated," he said shaking his head as he handed the little but annoyingly powerful object back.

Her years of living between two worlds taught her how to deal with it. She knew that a sweet voice and a soft caressing hand could calm her father's temper almost every time they had a disagreement, but some days not even her low, mellow tone was enough to calm her father's prejudice and not very quiet thoughts.

She breathed deeply, determined to avoid having her entire day ruined so early. She grabbed the boxes that Ron had pulled out of the wardrobe and walked to the empty shelves.

Audrey flicked her wand towards the shelves, and the new merchandise -what George called surprise bombs- flew towards them organized properly. The store was filled with visitors and often enough she had to cut her job to attend a client. It was one of those fast paced mornings that made everybody at the store run back and forth.

The bell at the door rang once again and Audrey, determined to finish organizing the new merchandise paid little attention to the new client. But it didn't take her long to recognize the male voice that spoke cautiously behind her, just like she was familiar by now with the way he cleared his throat every time he was about to address her. Percy saluted her from the distance, serious, warily, never attempting more than what he could handle. She smiled politely and saluted back, driving her eyes as quickly as possible to the products to label them properly.

Percy, the third of seven –now six- brothers, was nothing like the rest of his family. Apart from the hair colour, there wasn't much resemblance at all. There wasn't much to think of him at first. But, after weeks of knowing the man, and becoming more acquainted with him, mainly because he seemed to be spending more and more time at his brother's shop for no apparent reason, Audrey felt she knew him well enough to point out his distinguishing characteristics.

He was awfully quiet and often seemed too conceited; it didn't take her too many days to notice that he liked to brag about himself as well. He didn't have any traces of his brothers' sense of humour, and Audrey considered that a major flaw, because laughing was one of the things she loved the most about life. He also seemed to put too much importance in what others thought of him. He often nagged George about his products; one day he even walked in with a pile of parchments that stated the rules of explosives and entertaining merchandising. According to Percy, George was breaking 70% of the Ministry's regulations.

Then, there were what she liked to call the _other_ _things_. Those were the things that she couldn't help noticing every time she saw him, things that made him different from his brothers, in a good way, things that fuelled her inevitable attraction towards him, things that made her believe that Percy Weasley was actually one of those great guys that are always so scarce. She began to notice those _other __things _last Valentine day, only a few weeks ago, when she heard he had sent his mother a box of chocolates, and she couldn't help feeling moved about that.

Audrey flicked her wand one more time, with slight distraction, and the bomb that should have travelled to the shelf stopped on the air and fell straight on her head. The merchandise made an awfully loud explosion, and Audrey felt a cold liquid spreading over her body.

She hadn't even opened her eyes yet when she felt a hand grabbing her arm firmly and lifting her off the floor.

"Audrey!" said Percy. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," she whispered faintly, trying not to swallow the liquid that was running down her face. "I'm fine."

"You alright there?" asked George, who was also standing next to her. "You're lucky. That one just had water," he said grinning as he helped to get her standing.

"Just water?" snapped Percy, turning to his brother abruptly. "Isn't this enough proof of how ridiculously dangerous these things are?"

"Perce, give me a break," George retorted, rolling his eyes.

"Guys, I'm fine. I'm great," assured Audrey. "I'm just...soaking wet." She freed herself from the men's grip and walked to the door that was behind the counter. Once she entered the room she noticed that Percy had walked in behind her.

"I've told him thousands of times to—"

"I'm—I'm alright Percy." But he didn't listen to her, instead he searched for something between the piles of boxes. He found a piece of cloth and handed it to her. She received it and wiped her face with it but it didn't really help. The drops of water remained on her face, dripping down her hair and penetrating her shirt.

"Maybe we can use a cleaning spell," he suggested.

"No. It won't work. These are designed to wear off by themselves," she said. Percy shook his head in clear disapproval.

"I've told him how irresponsible these things—"

"—It's going to take you more than talking to get George out of this business," she said through a smile. There, in his serious and concerned eyes was another _thing_ she couldn't help noticing. The way he cared so much about certain subjects or certain people, and the way he stood up for his believes might have seemed stubborn to some, but to Audrey it looked more passionate than anything else, and somehow overprotective, something she didn't mind at all from a man.

"But look at you..." he said sternly.

"Percy, this place is your brother's life, you can't expect to change him just like that..." she said patiently. Percy shook his head and slowly removed the cloth that was resting in Audrey's hand. His eyes scanned her in a matter of seconds; he went from her wet hair, to her face, to her shirt, before driving his eyes up again in a hurry.

"Do you mind if I—"he said, bringing slowly the cloth to her face. He hesitated for a second when she didn't make any gesture, but soon he pressed the fabric against her cheek, and then her forehead. She smiled softly at his determination of helping out.

"It won't dry off," she whispered after a moment. Audrey looked up at him, and felt tempted of taking his glasses off to contemplate his eyes better. There were many things she had to discover about him yet, she was sure of that, and the curiosity wouldn't leave her alone. She restrained herself, but held his hand instead, which had stopped gently on her cheek. She stood still, her eyes persistent under his. She understood she was waiting for him to do something, and when he cleared his throat and let go of her hand and her face, she understood what that thing she had been waiting for was.

"Sorry, I, I mean—" he said uncomfortably. "—That thing is really not going to dry off anytime soon," he added. Audrey chuckled, thanked him for trying and turned to go back to the shop.

Once he left, she spent the rest of the day submerged in her activities, thinking about the ways he acted around her, sometimes attentive, others distant, but always somewhat nervous.

She was sure of one thing, his constant visits to the shop he disliked so much weren't about spending so much time with his brothers, she now realized that she was the reason he came back four times a week. But every time she felt something else was about to happen, he retreated. It was very odd, because she still wasn't sure if she wanted that something else to happen or she preferred that things stayed as they were.

The positive thing was how little she thought of her disputes with her father every time she caught herself thinking about Percy. She couldn't help but find it refreshing.

That afternoon, Ron left the shop early and George asked her to close up for the evening. Audrey took her time at putting everything in order. She had no intention of going back to her lonely flat early, mainly because she was sure her answering machine was about to blow up with messages from her father, since she had decided to turn her mobile off.

She heard the bell of the door ring once, and when she turned she couldn't restrain an unexplainable smile. Percy was standing outside, he rarely came to pay his brothers a visit twice in one day. She had noticed how cautious he was, probably because he didn't want to seem desperate.

Audrey opened the door and greeted him as politely as she could, and after he came in, one of the first things he did was ask for Ron. Audrey chuckled before answering.

"He's not in, neither is George," she explained.

"Oh..." he stood by the counter, seeming somehow lost in the shop. Audrey was used to feeling that he didn't seem in his element every time he came over.

"You know..." she said walking closer to him. "I told you a couple of weeks ago, that you can just come whenever you want. It doesn't matter if Ron and George are in," she said shrugging. She didn't mind giving him a little push now and then, although sometimes she was under the impression that her little pushes intimidated him. Percy smiled, and looked down at the floor for a few seconds.

"I know...I just—I know," he looked at her again. "Are you closing up?" he changed the subject.

"Yes, I was just about to leave."

"Then maybe I can walk you home. Unless of course you are apparating there, which would be more logical—"

"—walking sounds fine. I like walking," she said softly, smiling once more.

The other thing about Percy was that contrary to what George always said, Audrey found most of his conversation topics interesting. It wasn't hard to follow him, except when he got too intense and out of hand, which she often just found amusing to watch. During the long, cold walk they discussed books, famous wizards, and occasionally, Quidditch, until he became engrossed with explaining the new laws The Ministry of Magic was establishing for the upcoming Quidditch World Cup. Audrey wasn't much of a fan of laws and restrictions.

"...You see, the integral laws are changing, it's all part of the process Kingsley established a few months ago that all events should be better protected, not just for us, but for Muggles as well..."

Audrey listened as any good listener would, but she couldn't hold back a smile or a chuckle from time to time.

"What—what's so funny?" he asked, stopping his explanation.

"Nothing," she assured.

"Yet, you're laughing."

"No, not laughing. It's just that...you really seem to love what you do. It's endearing really."

"Endearing..."he said, building a smile on his lips. "Nobody called me endearing before whenever I talked about work."

"What did they call you?" she asked.

"You don't want to know..." he said. Audrey laughed, which made him smile again.

"What about you? What do you love?" he asked. Audrey stopped walking and turned to face him.

"W—what?"

"I mean, what do you love doing?"

"Oh, many things..." she said shrugging. She retook her pace, noticing that her flat was only a couple of feet away from her.

"But you plan on doing something else, right?"

"Something else? Else than what?" she asked again.

"I mean, you working at the shop. That's transitional, right?" he insisted. Audrey began to feel rather uncomfortable with his way of interrogation.

"I don't know...I mean, it was at first. But I love it there, so I might stay for a while."

"You love it there?" he questioned, raising his eyebrows. Audrey stopped walking again, but this time it was because they had reached her place.

"Yes, what's not to love? I have great bosses, the pay is good and the shop is by far the most interesting place I've ever been in. George's even teaching me some of his formulas. It's like Potions class all over!" she said excited. "Last week I helped him repair one of his products that had gone bad, and I've come up with a couple of ideas myself that he might like."

"Yes, but...you're not at Hogwarts anymore," he said sternly, which made her smile and excitement fade. "Shouldn't you be looking for a real job?" he asked. Audrey's mouth fell open, and Percy must have realized just how offensive his words were, because his face changed abruptly and he instantly fell into silence.

"Are you saying that my job's not real? Because it seems real at the end of each month when it allows me to pay the rent and helps me stock my fridge," said Audrey, dry and hard.

"No! No, not at all. I was just—I'm just asking—"

"—You're not asking Percy. You're judging..." she said, and at that minute she realized the reason she was so instantly mad. "Oh my god. You're just like him," she said to Percy and to herself.

"Like whom?" he asked, thrown off.

"My father. You're just like my father. You think I'm less than you because I work in a shop..."

"No! I never said that!" he replied. "But...you have to admit that experimenting with explosives is not very mature for a smart full grown woman," he added. Audrey opened her mouth again.

"Oh, that's great! Now you think I'm immature! You think my way of making a living isn't good enough for you?"

"No! This has nothing—"

"—You know what? You know nothing about me. And you can't stand there and judge me because I work at a shop rather than filling a bureaucratic spot in the Ministry of Magic!" she said, exasperated. Percy opened his mouth but didn't say anything. Audrey shook her head strongly. "You know...I can't believe I didn't see this coming. It's so...oh, never mind!" said going up the stairs and unlocking the door to her flat as fast as possible, she walked in and she wasn't sure, but she thought she slammed the door in his face.

Audrey couldn't believe she was falling into another vicious circle. She had enough trouble handling her father, she wasn't going to fall for a guy who considered himself superior to her in any way. She just wasn't.

She stopped in her tiny living room and glanced at the red bulb of her answering machine. When she walked up to it she deleted the fifteen new messages without listening to them. She sighed strongly as she threw herself on her couch. She knew her father and stepmother weren't going to rest until she agreed to go to that dinner party.

She realized then that she might as well go, put up with it one more time, because that wasn't even what really bothered her anymore. She acknowledged that from all of Percy's cons and pros, the only thing she would never put up with was his superiority complex. An unwelcome sensation drilled into her stomach when she realized that everything had ended before it had even begun.

She glanced into the roof, reviewing his attitude towards her during the past weeks; recalling subconsciously how attentive he was of her; and how he rambled nervously whenever he wanted to catch her attention; how he always wanted to make sure she didn't get hurt in the making of George's products; how he visited the shop with lame excuses; and especially of how he always seemed to want to kiss her, but always ended up backing out. Audrey caught herself smiling to the memory of it all, and was instantly mad at herself for being so weak of character, and tried to dig in his flaws, emphasizing strongly on them.

When her doorbell rang she woke up abruptly. She realized she had fallen asleep on the couch, and the clock of her answering machine said she had been sleeping for almost an hour.

Audrey stood up and walked to open the door, to find Percy standing on the door frame, as serious as always.

She stood still and quiet, pretending to be as mad as she had been an hour ago.

"I know it took me a while to ring but—"

"—Wait. You've been out here for an hour?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Well, I sort of—I wasn't sure of what to say I. I think I'm still not sure of what..."

Audrey sighed. At that pace he would explain himself by midnight.

"Just say what you really think," she encouraged, again giving him a little push.

"Well, I'm sorry if what I said insulted you," he began. "I don't think less of you. I couldn't possibly think less when I—well, when I think of you I, I think you are...just amazing," he said.

"Just amazing?" said Audrey, chuckling spontaneously.

"I'm just trying to say I'm sorry."

"But you still think that what I do...and what your brother does is childish and immature," she pointed out.

"I know... but that's not what I meant to say. I just...I just don't agree with him, alright? But that doesn't mean I don't respect him. I think he's accomplished a lot. George might be the one who's gone the furthest of our family," said Percy. "I—"He stopped talking and looked at the street before speaking again. I—I admire him," admitted.

Audrey stared into his eyes, penetrating the glass that covered them, looking for something solid in them, and the firmness of his sight was enough for her to believe him.

"And I certainly don't think less of you at all for working there."

"Keep going," she said with sudden interest.

"Listen, I've been a prick before, alright?"

"Percy...you're not a—"

"—Don't argue. I know what I'm saying. And apparently I can still be one. But bad habits are hard to kick sometimes..." he added, looking down at the floor with his last words.

"Percy, what are you talking about?"

"I'll explain it to you someday," he promised, staring at her again.

"Fine..." she whispered, her face uncertain.

"And the thing about not knowing you...that's exactly what I'm trying change here."

Audrey sighed, resting her head against the doorframe. She noticed her silence was making Percy nervous, because he began to look at the floor and was gently swaying his body back and forth on the spot.

"Listen, I've had a lousy day, and I just want to get through with it," she said.

"Sure...well..." He stood silently and she noticed he was trying to say something else...maybe ask her out?

"I could use a drink, though," she said with nature. She really did need that drink.

"Right! That was just what I was going to say...we can go to the Leaky Cauldron." He offered.

"Sure, we could...but, I don't know, how do you feel about beer?"

"Butterbeer?" He raised his eyebrow.

"No! Beer! You know, as in _Muggle_ beer..." she corrected. He shrugged, looking a little thrown off by Audrey's proposal.

"Sure..." he said a second later. She was sure he was accepting the invitation for the pleasure of pleasing her.

"I know where we can go," She ran in to grab her purse and then took his wrist to lead the way.

--

"Oscar!" said Audrey as she reached the counter of the old pub she visited occasionally.

"Audrey! Long time no see! Where have you been?"

"Here and there," she shrugged.

"Always mysterious, yeah well, guys dig that, don't we pal?" He said refereeing to Percy, who didn't seem very pleased with Audrey's old friend. "What are we having tonight?"He said leaning on the counter.

"Make it two Bodingtons."

He nodded politely, turned around and after seconds returned with two large glasses filled with the obscure substance. "As cold as you can get them."

She received the drink and led the way to a lonely table, where Percy took a moment to pull out her seat for her.

"Thanks..." she said with a smile. The gentleman features where part of the _things_ she couldn't stop admiring.

They drank the first beer rather fast. She was more than used to it and Percy described it as oddly refreshing. There was always something fun about seeing a wizard discovering the Muggle world, maybe because she never had the chance to share it with any Muggle friends or relatives before. Her father wasn't the best test subject.

Again they didn't find it hard to talk. Percy had read a high portion of the wizard books that were out there, while Audrey had read a high percentage of the Muggle novels.

"I have to admit, though," she said after a while. "Of all the things I've read, Jane Austen is the only one I've repeated thousands of times."

"Who's that?"

"A Muggle writer..."she said shrugging. "She's a classic," she said with a small smile. Percy nodded.

"What are her books about?

"Oh...never mind. I'll bore you to death."

"Go on. Bore me," he encouraged with a grin, Audrey smiled back. "I want to know."

"She wrote amazing romance novels."

"Maybe I can read one of them," he shrugged.

"I don't think you'd like it," she said. "My father once tried it with _Emma_, but didn't get past the third chapter." Percy laughed softly and the tightened his grip around his glass of beer. Audrey looked at him firmly, trying to read through him again, trying to guess what it was that he wanted."

"So...you used to live with your father, right?" he suddenly asked, Audrey understood he was trying to get more of her personal life out in the open.

"Yes," she answered simply. "He raised me."

"Oh...and your mother..." he said, hesitating, probably walking cautiously through the unknown territory.

"Wouldn't know. She left. I was six," she explained.

"Oh...I'm sorry. I didn't—I wouldn't have..."

"That's alright. Long time ago," she said and took a deep drink. Percy fell silent, and Audrey gave herself a moment before speaking again.

"You know, one day she just wasn't there anymore, no explanation, dad never heard from her again..." she said softly.

"That's..."

"I know. But we managed, that is...until I got my letter. It was as if suddenly everything came to place. He had been married to a witch and he didn't even know it. He understood why she had been so mysterious, and he found the explanation to all the weird things that happened around her. So...you can't blame my father for not liking magic."

"He doesn't like magic?" he asked astonished.

"He pretty much despises it..." she said with a small chuckle. "But, I don't really blame him. He says he lost us both, my mother and me, to the magic world."

"That's rubbish."

"Well, when I finished Hogwarts my father thought I would work at the company with him, but instead I accepted a job at Gringotts and rented a flat in London. He wasn't very pleased by that," she said, looking at the bar. She gestured at Oscar with her hand and he winked at her, understanding her silent request.

"You worked at Gringotts?" he asked, seeming surprised. Audrey took a deep breath, and Oscar arrived with two more glasses of beer.

"Yes, but only for a couple of months. You see, dad got very sick. So I went back to the house and lived with him, for almost two years until he got better."

"I'm really sorry. I didn't know."

"No, that's alright. He's better now, so I moved out of the house again and got that job at the shop. My dad's fine remarried. Alexis is great but...she doesn't know I'm a witch, that's all. My father isn't very proud about that little detail, so she keeps setting me up with these horrible guys...but she means well, I guess."

"That doesn't sound very fair," he said resentfully. "I mean...what you did for him..."

"Percy, he's my family, he's all I've got, and I'm all he's got. Yes, we are very different and we do have problems but...he's my father after all. I'd never turn my back on him, no matter how much we disagree." Percy stared at her in silence. His face changed drastically. "But I'm sure you understand that more than well. I mean, you clearly love your parents so much..." she said with spontaneous tenderness. "You should know how hard it would be to leave them behind."

Percy's eyes were unreadable to Audrey. She had never seen such an expression on his face. It was something between worry and frustration, she wasn't very sure, but she felt unexplainably concerned, because she felt as if she had just meddled in a subject that was painful for him.

"Are you alright?" she asked. Percy took a moment before shaking his head.

"I...Audrey," he said, his voice weak. "You and I are very different," he pointed out. He had stated something she knew very well by then. She didn't need that reminder, for she had been searching like crazy the reasons that attracted her about him, because they certainly were quite different. She frowned, but he talked again before she could reply.

"I've done too many things I'm not proud of..." he added, looking at the table instead of at her.

"We've all done things we're not proud of, Percy."

"No, not like me..." he whispered.

"Listen...it can't possibly be that bad," she said reaching his hand with hers. She didn't hesitate when she tightened her grip and Percy gave her a small but fainted smile. She looked at his hurtful eyes again and waited for his reaction. The way his face had changed from pleasant to angst made her understand that whatever had happened in his past still affected him too much to express it out loud. "You know...you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," she encouraged.

Percy nodded and drank from his glass again. To her own surprise she didn't feel like pushing him to confess, she felt more interested in finding out about his likes, about his passions, than hurting him by meddling in his deepest pains.

It was a complete mystery what was that was drawing her closer and closer to him. Her list of _things_ was growing with each minute, but she still couldn't make out what was that was so powerful.

At that minute Percy's fingers moved over Audrey's hadn't, caressing her skin softly, she smiled and understood he was putting his thoughts behind him and returning his attention to her. Her attention was drifted away, though, the moment the pub played a song that belonged to her favourite band.

"Oh god," she said with an excited smile. "I love that song! Actually, I love that band."

"Your favourite?" asked Percy, suddenly smiling widely, as he did every time he saw her excitement towards something.

"The Beatles? Yes! There's still not a group in the world that could top that Muggle band," she said.

"What are they about? I mean, their songs," he asked. Audrey hesitated for a moment. She still wasn't used to the way he always seemed interested about everything that concerned her. At first it had been disturbing the way he asked her so many questions, but she soon got accustomed to his way of approaching her, even if sometimes his questions got out of hand, like earlier that night.

"I would like to say peace, tolerance and men's deepest and most philosophical thoughts...but that's social rubbish. Truth is that the Beatles were all about love," she answered. He raised his eyebrows, he chuckled shyly.

"So...do they know something we don't know about?"

"Oh, not at all. They just savoured love as it is. That's why they were so amazing, they weren't trying to explain the unexplainable."

That's when everything else made sense. The deep analysis she had been applying on Percy was a great waste of time. She didn't need to find _things_ in his personality. It wasn't necessary, logical. She wasn't going to explain attraction, ever. Inevitable things can't be explained. Then and there she decided to put an end to her ridiculous evaluation.

"Dance with me?" she asked out of nowhere. Percy stiffed on his chair.

"No. I mean, I don't dance that, I don't know...I—No."

Of course he didn't dance; she should have seen that coming.

"Oh, please, anybody can dance that, it's like any other slow song. And nobody here knows you, by the way," she whispered. Audrey stood up and offered him her hand, a subtle but mocking grin playing on her lips.

Percy looked at both sides and sighed when he took her hand. She walked him to the floor, where no more than two couples danced to the sound of _Oh, Darling_, and a man, old enough to be her father, danced in a shadowy corner, following the lyrics passionately, while embracing a bottle of whisky.

Percy shook his head and Audrey laughed at the scene.

"He's having a worse day than you," said Percy.

"Actually, my day turned better a while ago," she replied softly. She could tell, by the expression of the eyes that hid behind the glass frames that he still couldn't get used to her helpful hints. Percy looked around again, and to her surprise got over himself rather quickly; he placed his hands on her waist and once again it wasn't hard to follow him at all.

He tightened his grip on her slowly, calculating, probably over analysing his moves, while Audrey simply allowed herself to be indulged by the melody she adored so much, and soothed by the scent of the man she had admitted herself to.

When she looked up again she found that the two couples had disappeared, leaving them to the company of the man who had found the perfect match in his bottle of whisky.

"We're in the middle of the pub..." she said softly.

"We are..." she heard Percy say.

"And nobody else is dancing..."

"No," he replied.

"And you don't feel like you're making a fool of yourself?" she teased.

"Surprisingly? No," he said, raising his head to gaze into her eyes. Audrey smiled.

"Do you like it?" she asked.

"Yes..." he said, staring deeply. "Wait! What?" he corrected. Audrey laughed.

"The music!"

"Oh...right. Yes, it's great!"

The tune changed softly and Audrey smiled instantly to the memory of the song.

"That song is amazing, one of the best," she said.

"What's it about," he asked softly.

"Maybe you should listen to it," she encouraged.

"I want to hear you tell me," he replied.

"Fine..._Something_, that's the title. It's about a guy who adores something about a girl, but he can't really describe what it is that he loves so much. He just knows he's tied up," explained Audrey shrugging. Percy laughed quietly for a moment. "You know..." she said simulating to be deep in thought "...you ask far too many questions." Percy laughed again, his face leaning down, closer to hers.

"Maybe I do. One last question?"

"Make it the last one of the night," she demanded.

He leaned forward a couple of inches, until his lips where closed enough to be felt by hers, even when they weren't really touching "Can I...?" he asked softly.

"If you have to ask...then I might say no..." she replied sweetly. For once Percy understood the hint more than well, because it was him the one to close the remaining distance between them. Once he had done so Audrey acknowledged that her list of _things_ had been missing the most important feature of him all this time. She should have begun with a kiss, it would have simplified the equation.

He separated himself delicately, and Audrey was already smiling when he opened his eyes again.

"I'm really sorry about today," he said softly.

"Actually, I have ways for you to compensate," she whispered, her lips developing another impulsive, yet satisfied smile.

"Wasn't that it?" he asked, and she couldn't help but giggle at the silly features that conquered his own expression, a mixture of a pleased expression and a surprised one.

She shook her head gently, but allowed him to caress the corner of her lips softly with his, a small sigh escaped from his throat.

"Seriously," she said shaking her head. "You see...I have this dinner party. Dad really wants me to go, and I'm thinking...I should please him," she said smirking involuntarily, and raising her eyebrow mischievously. Percy frowned in doubt. "I didn't really care for going...at least not without a date."

"Do you want to pull your father out of his sockets or something, by bringing a wizard who knows very little about Muggles to a Muggle event?" he asked.

"Hey, he owes me...big time. And it's just a dinner party...or so he says," she said through an innocent melodic tone of voice. Percy looked at her, as if he weren't sure if trusting her was the smartest thing to do.

"Hey, I fancy dinner parties," he finally said, shrugging, and leaned down to her again, but not fast enough to reach her lips before Audrey had reached his.

--

_A/N: __If you want to read more on them, My One shot: The Thing That Matters_, explains what happened on Valentine's days, a few weeks before. You can also find them in chapter 4 of _Small Moments, Big Meanings. _

_Thank you so much to those of you who voted on the poll or are giving out character request__s! I published the poll results on my profile, and I'm working on the top two. _

_Until next chapter! In the mean time...please review!!!_


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